Something's Got to Give
by Melaminar
Summary: Something's got to give. It's the title of Marilyn's last movie, never finished and never seen, its filming interrupted by her death. It's also a phrase Ivy Lynn finds applies more and more to herself these days. This is her journey towards getting her life together.
1. Chapter 1

The adrenaline and intensity of the past evening and the fact that despite it all she did truly love the theater - loved being on stage, loved the exhilaration of performing, loved seeing the excitement in the audience and feeling the joy and pride that came from being the cause of that excitement - all of those things had combined to get Ivy Lynn through the performance tonight, but now the show was ending.

The show may not have been over, she could still hear the final notes of the final number, but the audience was already cheering and that's when it hit her. That finale, those cheers could have been, no, _should_ have been hers, but they weren't and would never be. And now that she had the time to fully process everything that had happened and what it all meant, it overwhelmed her. Ivy reached for her purse and opened the bottle that she had been looking for.

She stared at her palm and the large pile of little white pills sitting there, and it scared her. She hadn't meant to pour out that many of them. The dosage sitting in her hand right now would kill her. It was the dosage for people who truly wanted to die and she wasn't quite there yet. She was closer to that point than she'd have liked to admit, but still, she wasn't there yet. She still wanted to live. She reached for the bottle again and poured back most of the pills. There, she thought, looking at her hand again. That was a dosage that wouldn't kill her, the dosage that she wanted. The proper dosage for people who merely hated their lives, for people who wanted to escape their lives, but not end their lives.

She had a few minutes to herself here, at least, before everyone else came backstage and before the curtain call so she threw the pills in her mouth and swallowed, making a face as they slid down her throat. She felt a little lightheaded, but she thought that was simply the effect of her raw nerves and raw emotions, not the pills. She knew that she had about an hour before they really kicked in. That was enough time for her to get herself back to her hotel room so that nobody would see her while she was under the influence. Enough time to say hello and exchange a few pleasantries with everyone before claiming that she didn't feel well and slipping away quietly before the cast and crew afterparty.

Not that anyone there would miss her much there. They might say it was too bad she couldn't make it, but they wouldn't truly miss her presence. Not even Tom and Sam. It wasn't that they no longer cared about her, but just they were both so busy testing out their new relationship that they didn't have much attention to spare for her. She didn't resent them for it though.

No, that wasn't true. More accurately, it was a gigantic lie. She absolutely did resent them for it, even if she wasn't proud of that fact. She couldn't help but wonder if Tom would have fought harder for her, would have insisted that she and not Iowa be Marilyn, if he hadn't been dating anyone. She wondered if that would have made a difference in what had happened tonight. She knew that she should suppress these thoughts, bury them so deep inside of her that they would never come up. And she had tried to do that. But all that meant was that whenever she faltered and they came up anyways, a wave of self-loathing and shame at her selfishness joined the regret and bitterness those thoughts fostered by themselves. Still, for all of her faults, Ivy was a good enough friend that she could fake a smile - no, more than that, she was a good enough friend that she could smile and mean it - when she saw them together. She still cared enough about them that she was genuinely happy for them. Even if it was a wistful, bittersweet type of happiness.

She smiled at that last thought, saw herself reflected in the mirror, and smiled again. Were the pills taking effect already? She doubted it, not after only a few minutes, which made her smile once more. So there were still shreds of non-chemically-induced happiness left for her after all. Good.

The applause had died down by now and the company would soon be returning to the dressing room. Ivy dried her tears, put on her smile, and stood up, ready to complete her escape.

* * *

There would be more rehearsals in New York before _Bombshell_ actually opened on Broadway, and she had spent every waking moment since she'd returned from Boston dreading them. But she was as trapped in to playing this role as Marilyn was in to any of hers. Sure, she could always leave for another show, but the chances of finding one that would take her were infinitesimally small. And if she got herself kicked off of this one, they'd disappear altogether. So when she put the pill bottle in her purse before leaving her apartment for the rehearsal studio, she resisted the urge to take any. They could be her source of relief after rehearsal, but she'd have to get through it first on her own.

Still, even accounting for her phenomenally low expectations, it wasn't as bad as she thought it would be. Derek had been blessedly civil to Ivy throughout. Good. Any admonishment from him would have only reminded her and everyone else of their, well, their whatever-they-had. It was hard to think of it as a real and meaningful relationship now, even if it had sure felt like one then. Yeah, she'd half-assed her way through most of the day but everyone seemed to understand why her heart just wasn't in it today, that she'd just had it repeatedly broken, and refrained from commenting on it. Either that or as a chorus girl she just wasn't important enough to notice. It was awkward, yes, but that was it. And then there was Karen, who had arrived at the studio at almost the same time as she had, and who had stared at her for a second with a look of utter contempt before turning away, as if little miss perfect couldn't even bear the sight of someone like her. She wondered if Karen would try and use her newfound stardom to have Ivy removed. Well, there was one thing she could do and she did owe Karen an apology.

Rehearsal ended and she saw her chance. "Karen? I just wanted to say that I'm sorry..."

"For what? For fucking my fiance?" Karen had said those words quietly, calmly, but everyone had not only heard them, but stopped in shock and turned, partially from the novelty of hearing Iowa curse for the first time, but mostly just to watch the impending showdown. "For trying to fuck with my head before the show? Or for..."

"Look, I'm sorry about that. I...well...I mean..." _Since when do I stammer_, Ivy wondered, as she continued to try and explain herself. "...I just thought you'd want to know, and ... um ... I didn't know..."

"Bullshit. So I'm from Iowa. It doesn't mean I'm an idiot. You knew exactly who and what you were doing when you slept with Dev."

"Okay, fine," she admitted, "I made a mistake with Dev, I know that. My boyfriend had just decided to replace me. Not just in the show, but in his bed. I was upset. I was in a bad place. And then I saw you. I was hurt and I lashed out. People do that sometimes. I shouldn't have, but I did."

"'You're _always_ in a bad place, Ivy. It's always poor you this and life isn't fair that. Four months ago, I would have given anything to trade places with you. You get to do something you love and that you're good at. But..."

"Not good enough at, apparently," Ivy interrupted bitterly.

"You know what?" asked Karen sarcastically. "I am so sorry that you've spent so long on Broadway. I'm sorry that nobody agrees with you that just because your mom was a star and just because you'll sleep with the director that you're entitled to the part. But that's _not my fault_. I've done nothing to you. Nothing."

"You know nothing," fumed Ivy. "Nothing. Nothing about me, nothing about the theater, nothing about life, nothing about anything. And for your information, my mother..."

"Fine, whatever, so your mom's a bitch. That's not my fault either."

"No, of course not. Nothing's ever your fault. Nothing ever happens because of anything you did. Don't you get it, Iowa? That's the fucking point," spat Ivy. "You don't _do_ anything, you don't work for anything, you've never had to struggle for anything. You've never earned anything. Never. You, you just go out and expect things to just fall in to your lap and somehow, some way, they always do. You don't know what it's like to want something more than anything else in the world, to know that you'll do anything for it, to know that you're good enough for it and you're right for it, only to be told that you can't have it, over and over again. And then when you think you've finally, for once, caught that break that you've worked for your whole life and that you know you deserve, it gets snatched away from you and then dangled in front of you, just out of your reach. And then snatched away again and given to..."

"Stop. Just stop. I don't care what you think, because I earned this, standing on my own two feet and not on my back. I did not steal Marilyn from you and I certainly did not steal Derek. He asked me first, remember? You lost them all by yourself. And even if I did steal them, you were being turned away up and down Broadway long before I ever got here. So maybe you should stop wallowing in your self-pity and stop blaming me and realize that maybe everyone's rejected you because they don't want to be around someone who's petty, conniving, jealous, and entitled."

Ivy turned and exited the studio, surrendering the argument without a response. She just couldn't take it anymore. When had Iowa grown such sharp claws? But worse was the realization that if Karen did try and get her booted from the show, she couldn't say that she didn't understand exactly why. She couldn't say she didn't deserve at least some of Karen's hostility, and most maddening of all, she couldn't say that Karen wasn't at least partially right. She'd turned herself into a pariah thanks to _Heaven on Earth_ and all of her desperate ploys to get Marilyn back had backfired on her. Every single one. Each had just served to strengthen and to temper Karen and forge her into the star that Derek seemed to see. She still had her fury at Iowa, but Ivy Lynn had realized that she really was her own worst enemy.

She sat down in the hallway and began to sob quietly.


	2. Chapter 2

Ivy heard the door open again. Karen was leaving the studio. She turned and didn't look at Ivy for even a second. Derek followed, chasing after his star. And then Ivy saw Tom step out and walk directly towards her.

"You're coming to fire me again, aren't you?" she asked softly, without malice. She half-expected the answer to be that yes he was. "It's okay, I understand. She's the _star _now, she gets what she wants." Only at the end of that did bitterness enter her voice.

Tom's jaw dropped at that, literally. He stood there, gaping, moving his mouth up and down, looking like a fish. Despite her mood and what she thought he was about to say, Ivy thought it was quite adorable.

"Listen to me," he said quietly, "and listen good. I will never fire you again. That's a promise. Now, how are you?"

"I'm fine."

"You're not fine."

"I will be...or I think I will be...maybe." She sighed. "I don't know. It's only the first day back and already, this happened. I don't know how much more of this I can take. And I know that there's going to be _so much_ more of it. How am I going to get through the week? Or opening night? It's just, well, something's got to give, you know?"

"I know," he said, looking into her eyes. "But it won't be you. You are tougher than that. You are better than that."

"I don't feel it."

"But you know it, don't you? I know you do."

She didn't answer, not immediately. But then she nodded reluctantly, wiping away her tears. "Thank you for this."

"It's nothing. Just the truth. And don't worry too much about Karen, she'll come around. She's a sweet girl, normally."

She pouted a bit at the mention of her rival - or could she really call Karen a rival, since Iowa had triumphed so decisively over her? - but didn't say anything. There was a moment of silence before Tom filled it again. "Something's got to give," he mused. "That was the title of Marilyn's last movie."

"Yeah," she said dryly. "They fired her from it and then rehired her. And then she killed herself."

"Don't. Don't do that. Don't say that. Don't even joke about that, Ivy." He moved to sit down next to her. "I told you before, they're not going to fire you again. I won't let them. If they want you gone, they'll have to get rid of me first."

He sighed before he continued. "So much of it's my fault. I should have been there for you, should have stuck up for you, should have insisted that it be you. I wasn't, and I didn't, and I am so, so, so sorry for that."

She laughed. "I know you are. You haven't even given me a single 'I told you so' about Derek."

He grinned as well. "And you don't know how much I've been holding it in."

"Are they together? I saw the way he ran after her. Just now and in Boston."

"I don't think so, not yet."

"Can I ask you something? And you won't just tell me what you think I want to hear?"

"Of course, anything."

"What does he see in her, anyways? Okay, so she can sing. I get that. But I can too. What does she have that I don't?"

"Derek...well...more than anything, Derek wants what he can't have." Tom paused at the look he saw Ivy giving him. "I'm not just saying this to make you feel better. I know him, we used to be friends before, well, just before. Derek doesn't play well with others and he doesn't share. He enjoys the chase and he likes winning, being able to mount trophies on his wall. He's one of those people who likes the fact that he's gotten something more than he likes actually having that thing, if that makes any sense. And that's what he sees in her."

"What, so this is all some new, horrifying form of karma?" she asked in disbelief. "Karen tells him no so he wants her more, I sleep with him so I get to become her stand-in?"

"No, not that exactly." He sighed and started over. "Ivy, look, you're gorgeous. And you do a wonderful Marilyn. You're big, brassy and bold, full of energy and life. You ooze sex appeal. You do all that so, so well, but he doesn't want that. All of us - me, Julia, him - we all want to tell the story of who Marilyn was underneath all of the glitz and glamor, but he has this vision, he wants to break from the traditional Marilyn altogether and do something so completely different. He wants the innocence that he thinks Karen brings. His Marilyn is a mercurial creature. He sees you as the bombshell that everyone saw Marilyn as, but he doesn't want that Marilyn at all. He wants to reinvent how everybody thinks about Marilyn."

"The show's called_ Bombshell_," Ivy pointed out.

"I know, right? The bombshell's always had a place in my vision of the show. Julia's too, I think."

They continued to sit together. Neither spoke, but it wasn't completely silent. The rest of the ensemble had yet to leave the studio, and they could hear voices from within, one voice in particular.

"...you're her friends too, where the hell were you guys in Boston...I was staying with my family, I wasn't there, you all _were_...yeah, I guess I should have, we all should have..."

Tom and Ivy looked at each other and smiled. "Sam," they said simultaneously.

"He loves you, you know."

"More than you?"

"I don't know. Maybe."

A moment passed.

"You know that you brought us together, right?" said Tom.

"I guess I did, didn't I?" was her response.

The door opened again. Sam walked out first and immediately went to embrace Ivy, bypassing Tom who didn't seem to mind. The rest of the chorus followed, with Jessica in front. "Come on," she said to Ivy, "we're going out. You're coming with us."

* * *

The place itself, the bar of a steakhouse, was something of a cliche, with richly paneled woods on the wall and crowded dark leather booths in the main dining room. Happy hour had ended a while ago, so they were able to grab a small table in the bar area. Ivy was several drinks in when she heard Jessica's voice in her ear. "Look at cutie banker over there, he's definitely checking you out."

Ivy looked to where Jessica was pointing and saw who she was talking about. He was with a group, probably coworkers, all dressed in nice suits and probably celebrating something, but he was standing a bit apart from them. His eyes met Ivy's. Yes, he was indeed checking her out. She didn't think he was a banker though. Jessica was a veteran of the ensemble, not quite as experienced as Ivy herself, but still with a solid list of credits to her name. But unlike Ivy, she wasn't a native New Yorker. In fact, Jessica was midwestern herself, although being midwestern by way of first Lake County and then Northwestern was a far cry from being midwestern by way of who-knows-where, Iowa. There were little details about the Manhattan expense-account set that a lifelong New York girl noticed but others often did not.

"I think he's a lawyer actually," she told Jessica after glancing at him once again. He was wearing a nice suit, charcoal, two buttons. While lawyers here usually wore three-button suits, the bankers almost _always_ did. Finance types tended to be louder, more obnoxious. Yes, lawyers had their share of aggressive work-hard-play-hard types too, but there weren't as many of them and they always stood out in a group of other lawyers, as they did here. If they were investment bankers, they'd all have blended in. Get a group of investment bankers together, and it would be like being in a frat house. They'd take over the place. Bankers liked things to be a little flashier and more exotic than lawyers, they preferred the dancers at Scores over the dancers in Broadway ensembles. Lawyer men preferred a little bit of conversation first before trying to pick up a girl; not that they really gave a damn about what their targets had to say, of course, not any more than a banker would, but lawyers liked to pretend that they were better, more thoughtful, more intellectual.

He was walking over to her. "Hi," he said with a smile.

"Hello yourself," said Ivy. "Settle something for me and my friend here. Where do you work?"

The smile seemed to falter slightly, Ivy noticed, as he said "Skadden."

"See, told you," she said to Jessica. "Lawyer."

"How do you know I'm a lawyer? Maybe I'm a paralegal, or a secretary, or something."

Ivy smirked at that one. "Because the only paralegals who go to places like this one are girls looking to drink for free off some middle-aged partner's expense account."

"Fair enough. Okay, I'm a lawyer. But enough about me. You're the girl in the video, aren't you?"

Ivy looked at him, quizzically. "What video?"

To her horror, he began to sing. "The higher you go, the farther the fall, " he sang, and then made diving motions with his right hand. Complete with sound effects.

She grimaced. She had guessed that stories of her shenanigans would spread among the Broadway community, but she wouldn't have thought, even in her wildest nightmares, that they would have spread to the outside world. And video? "Oh God, there's a video of that? Please, please, please can you forget you ever saw that?"

He laughed, saying "Not a chance. It's gone viral by now."

She slumped in her seat before saying, plaintively, "Please. I wasn't myself on that thing. I was on about thirty different drugs, most of which I had to take because I was in another show and I'd lost my voice and my director told me to, and then they fired me anyways and then there was this other girl and..."

He laughed again. "Hey, don't make excuses for it," he said smiling. "You're a star, blondie. Own it."

Ivy finished her drink. She'd long since lost count of how many that one made. "You want to get out of here?" He nodded.

She noticed Tom and Sam sitting in the far corner of the table. They hadn't heard the conversation but were watching her get up. They seemed to be debating whether to talk to her before she left with him. Then she saw the look that Jessica was giving her. She turned to her fellow chorus girl and said, simply, "He thinks I'm a star. I know he was probably joking. But he said I'm a star." Jessica moved her head slightly, hesitantly, almost imperceptibly. She had an unreadable expression on her face.

Ivy kept walking. Under her breath she muttered, "Not many people do these days."

* * *

The cab rolled up to the corner and stopped while her companion for tonight paid the driver and got out. Ivy looked around, realized exactly where she was, and just sat there in the back seat, motionless and numb. A minute passed and she started laughing, inexplicably and uncontrollably. Well, at least she knew the booze was working. _Of course _he would live here. Lexington and 52nd Street. The universe seemed to love rubbing salt in to all of her open emotional wounds, after all. So why wouldn't he live on this particular street corner? Actually...

Now that she thought about it, there _was _a good reason why he wouldn't. As far as she knew there weren't any residential buildings here, only offices. Actually, no, that was wrong, she thought, correcting herself. It wasn't just offices. Marilyn's little subway grate episode had happened right by a hotel and... Oh god, she thought, that was probably where he was taking her too. Ivy cringed to herself. Was she really about to let this stranger take off her panties at the same spot where the world saw Marilyn's?

And Ivy was pretty sure he'd said he lived in the city, so why wouldn't he take her to his place? She didn't think she was coming across as too clingy right now so... Was she also about to sleep with someone else's boyfriend again? Ugh. Well, she sure could pick them, couldn't she? Almost every coherent thought that had made it through the fog of alcohol in Ivy's mind screamed at her that she was about to make yet another terrible decision, told her to stay in the cab and tell the driver to take her home, but she remained silent.

""Coming?" His voice interrupted her thoughts.

"You live here?"

"Nah, my place is two blocks down 52nd, over by First Ave. I just didn't feel like waiting for the light. What was so funny?"

Well, at least _that_ was a relief, she thought. She got out of the cab and laughed slightly, nervously, at his question, searching for a way to gracefully deflect it. For whatever reason, she really didn't want to lie to him, but anything too close to the truth was sure to have him putting her back in that cab and sending her home while running away as fast as he could. "I was just realizing where we were."

"And where are we?"

She giggled, and said in the breathy, baby voice she had learned how to do to play Marilyn, "Lexington and 52nd Street, silly. I was just thinking of Marilyn Monroe and..."

"You're a block off," he interrupted. "That was Lexington and 51st, they have a plaque there where it happened."

Wait, when did this guy become a Marilyn expert?

He continued, "I pass it on my way to the train sometimes."

Well, that explained that.

"Oh, I know where it happened," she said, this time in her natural voice. "I was just thinking of Joe DiMaggio, standing on 52nd, watching her, watching everyone else watch her. Wondering what he must have been thinking and how he must have felt."

He didn't believe a word of that. "Really?"

She drew in her breath sharply. "Yes," she said, quickly. "The longing, the jealousy, the resentment. That's what I was thinking."

He had tilted his head in response and looked at her, as if to study her more closely. "And that was funny to you?"

"No, not really. No." She sighed. "You know that musical I was fired from? I was Marilyn. Lexington and 52nd is the title of one of the songs. Look, I don't really want to talk about it or think about it right now, okay?"

He grabbed her arm and gently pulled her forward. "Of course it's okay. Look, there's my building." He opened the door and held it for her, and she gave him a quick kiss as she entered.

They walked in to the elevator together.

**A/N: **Skadden is arguably the world's most famous law firm, whose NY offices are right on Times Square. It's not a name that I expect 99.9% of people to recognize, but it's something that anyone who can tell a lawyer from a banker just by looking would know. And yes, those people do exist, I can't do it with a glance like I had Ivy doing, I need a few more clues than I gave her, but I know people who can. And there are enough investment firms and law firms headquartered in and by the theater district that I think a lifelong New Yorker who spends a lot of time in Midtown bars and restaurants by the theaters could be one of them.

As far as I know, there really are only offices at Lexington Avenue and 52nd Street. The skirt-blowing scene did really happen on 51st and Lex, and there is a hotel there now. Well, it's between 51st and 52nd, I think it's closer to 51st but I've never measured. They do not really have a plaque there, at least not that I've been able to find. I assume the show made it 52nd because the song was from Joe DiMaggio's perspective standing a block away, or because 52nd fit the music better.


	3. Chapter 3

They had cuddled afterward. Ivy didn't think that meant anything other than that she had thought it felt nice to be held and he hadn't minded obliging her, but they had, for a short while before they each rolled over and fell asleep. Falling asleep in each others arms was a bit much for a simple hookup, they had silently agreed. She was awakened the next day by the sound of his phone. He was already up, freshly showered and partially dressed.

"Miller here," he said, picking up the phone and walking over to his kitchen to talk.

So that was his name. She had been trying to remember it, but all she could manage was that there was some association between this guy and Marilyn in her mind. He finished his call while she dressed herself.

"Good morning Arthur."

He looked at her for a moment, puzzled, and laughed. "It's Henry, actually."

"Oh. I'm so sor-"

"Don't worry about it Ivy," he said with a slight smirk. He had put on his shirt and pants now and was putting on his socks and his shoes. "Where did you get Arthur from?"

"It's silly, you'll laugh at me. I was thinking of..."

"Marilyn Monroe?" At her nod, he continued, "Sorry to disappoint, but Marilyn Monroe didn't marry Henry Miller. We got out of the cab at Lexington and 52nd Street last night, that's probably what you were thinking."

"You remembered all that? While you were drunk?"

"I get drinks with clients and colleagues a lot. Sometimes we talk business. Being able to remember what everyone said when they were drinking is rather useful. Sometimes I think it's half of how I made partner." He had moved to the closet to pick out a tie.

"By the way, you could probably sue them, you know."

"Who? What?"

"I don't know who, the director maybe, definitely the production itself if that's a separate entity, I don't know how show business works. You said they told you to take the pills, right? And the pills made you lose it in that video, and that's probably cost you some jobs?" He was tying his tie and saw her nod in the mirror. "Yeah, sounds like you have at least a prima facie case, you probably wouldn't win, but they wouldn't throw it out either. So if the show hasn't opened yet, it could scare investors and theaters away. That's leverage. Don't get the wrong idea here, this is almost certainly a terrible suggestion and you'd need to find another lawyer and..."

She had no intention of ever following up on this, but his last comment made her wonder nevertheless. "Why?"

He had just completed a perfect Windsor knot and was now busy straightening it. "Oh, lots of reasons," he said laughing. "One, this actually isn't my area. I'm a commercial litigator. Arguing about corporate contracts and structures, securities litigation, discussing the details of various financial instruments, and maybe a little bit of white collar crime work. Boring stuff, really. Two, you really shouldn't take off the cuff comments from people you just met yesterday as legal advice. Three, I'm pretty sure you'd burn a whole lot of bridges, but hey, if you want to go out in a blaze of glory, not my place to stop you. Four, I bill out at about nine hundred bucks an hour and that's slightly below average for a Skadden partner. You can't afford me. Five..."

"Okay, okay, I get the picture."

"Anyways," he said, picking up his suit jacket and putting it on, "I have to get to work, but last night was great. I know it sounds like a total cliche, I mean it, but it really was. I'm glad we met. Anyways, do you want me to get you a cab?"

"That'd be good, thanks."

They hugged and said their goodbyes.

* * *

She had asked the cab to take her home before going to rehearsal, not wanting to show up wearing the same thing she wore yesterday. As a result, she had trouble making it to rehearsal on time but as it turned out, it wasn't an issue. Both Tom and Derek were yet to arrive.

The company was sitting at the far corner, chatting. Ivy found a spot by the side and sat down, as Sam and Jessica moved over to talk to her.

"So, come on. You and hot lawyer. Spill!" demanded Jessica.

"There's nothing to spill. His name's Henry, he's cute, he wasn't bad, we had fun, and he was a gentleman and called me a cab the next morning. That's it."

Jessica laughed, punching Ivy on the shoulder lightly. "Come on! Details!"

Ivy laughed as well. "What! No, I mean it, there really is nothing to say. I needed a fun night out and I got one, that's it."

Then they, along with everyone else in the studio, fell silent as they heard raised voices coming from the hallway.

"...we have been over this a million times already. The entire point of the show is that Norma Jean may have become Marilyn, but Marilyn was always more Norma Jean than she was the girl everyone thought she was." There was Derek.

"I think I know what the point of the show is considering that _I wrote it_." And there was Tom.

"But you're not the one who has to put it on a stage, now _are you_? That's my job and we've been working on it for months now. And we _cannot_ and I_ will not_ start from the beginning again just so you can give a part to your pet chorus girl."

They were talking about her. That much had been obvious even without that little dig at the end.

Everyone in the studio was looking at her now, some with sympathy, others with pity, and others with simple embarrassment at being a party to her public humiliation, but most with a mixture of all three. She looked at Karen, out of a perverse sense of curiosity, wondering whether Iowa's face would contain a smirk or an expression of disdain, but Karen had the decency to avoid either. Instead, the brunette's face was seemingly blank, her thoughts unreadable.

_I will not cry_, thought Ivy, biting her lip. _Not here, not now, not in front of everyone_. She felt a large hand grasp hers and give it a gentle squeeze. Sam. Of course. Jessica had placed a small hand on her back, Dennis had moved next to her. Bobby followed, and then, to Ivy's surprise, Karen with her face still expressionless.

Tom was nearly shouting now. "She is so much more than just my pet chorus girl, and I _cannot_ _believe _I am giving you this much credit but I know you know that too."

"Yes, yes, yes, she's wonderful, okay? This isn't about her."

That failed to reassure Ivy, who thought that it definitely sounded like it _was_ about her. And it was the most dismissively she had ever been praised before, which, considering who her mother was, was saying something indeed. That part hurt almost as much as being branded a pet chorus girl had. But Derek continued.

"It's about how I continue to be the onlyone here who seems to be thinking about the show first and the only one doing what's best for the show, regardless of whatever petty personal drama that's going on around me. Because in my studio, we behave like professionals and leave the gossip about who is or is not sleeping with who _at the door._"

And with that, the door opened and he walked in, Tom trailing behind. He noticed the crowd listening to the argument. "Or at least we ought to," he said now, glancing at both Karen and Ivy. "Now, unless someone here thinks that the audience is interested in buying tickets to listen to us scream about how much we hate each other, let's get started. We'll be working on the staging of the finale this session..."

**A/N: **Nearly ten years ago now, I was a college student who went to hear a band play with my friends, and one of the songs was called "Marilyn Monroe Didn't Marry Henry Miller." It's a fairly catchy tune, but it was the lyrics that were really memorable. They were simple, at first glance, and yet still said something meaningful about Marilyn. And for someone who knew about the novelist Henry Miller - who was who had quite a fascinating life in his own right - then that meaning became even richer and deeper. So fast forward to early this year when I first saw ads for Smash. As soon as I heard about the premise - a musical about Marilyn Monroe - I instantly thought of that song again. It tells much the same story about Marilyn that Julia and Tom and Derek all say they'd like to tell in Bombshell, and it does so in a catchy and simple, yet nuanced and layered way. So of course I wanted to include a Henry Miller in my story. Many thanks to anyone reading this for putting up with my self-indulgence.


	4. Chapter 4

Derek had certainly tried to live up to his words about leaving personal drama at the door. Despite his implicit acknowledgment at the beginning of rehearsal of the fact that everybody in the studio had listened to his argument with Tom, he proceeded to conduct the rehearsal under the fiction that it had never occurred. For her part, Ivy tried her best to play along. She prided herself on her professionalism and before this emotional roller coaster with Marilyn had begun, it was a completely justified pride. Yes, she could remember the times when she had cried on Jessica's or Dennis's shoulders in the dressing room of _Heaven on Earth_ after a particularly tough rejection, but whenever she was called to the stage, she had always put on her most dazzing smile and dried her tears so well that nobody not in the ensemble ever knew that those tears had existed.

She noticed that it was always the little things that managed to hurt her the most. Little gestures that Karen would make when she was performing, little nuances in Iowa's interpretation of Marilyn that differed from the choices she would have made, that she had made. A vocal inflection here, a facial expression there. Sometimes she tried to look at them with a professional, detached eye, comparing them to her take on Marilyn, trying to evaluate whether they worked better or not. But mostly, she felt like a girl staring through the shop window at the designer dress she couldn't afford. She could think of how well it fit her, how great she would look in it, but mostly, how she could never have it.

She thought about the choreography again. They were still working on the finale. In Boston, it had been staged simply, with Karen standing alone in the spotlight on an otherwise darkened stage. But that was out of necessity, since for that performance the song hadn't even existed two hours before the curtain rose. Now that they had the time, they were adding little tableaus depicting parts of Marilyn's life to the background. And as the main shadow self, Ivy had the most important part in these scenes. Because the tableaus were intended as callbacks to earlier numbers, much of her choreography here was exactly the same as the Marilyn choreography from those numbers had been, the very choreography that she already knew so well. That made it extraordinarily easy for her to learn, but exceedingly difficult for her to perform. She thought it was rather cruel of fate to tantalize her by giving her this pale imitation of playing Marilyn, all while the real thing shone at center stage. But she was somehow managing to hold herself together. Mostly. Barely.

"Okay, let's take five," Linda announced. The company rushed out to take their eagerly anticipated break.

"Lunch later?" she saw Tom mouth to her as she walked past. She nodded with a smile.

Jessica had gone to Karen and the two were talking away, although Iowa seemed to be upset about _something_, she didn't know what. Shrugging, she headed downstairs grab a snack.

When she returned, she once again heard voices from inside the studio. She was walking to the door to listen when she felt a pair of hands grab her shoulders and gently pull her back.

So it was about her again. She wasn't surprised.

"I'm fine Sam," she said. "I want to hear."

"...and we've already done it with the shadow selves singing the song, we've already staged it that way before, and we know she can kill it on that number." There was Tom again.

"And I've never said she couldn't," said Derek dryly. "But that was when we had a Marilyn that couldn't sing."

"Look, just do one thing for me. Look me in the eye and tell me honestly that Ivy doesn't know at least twice as much about being secondhand and broken as Karen. Do that, and I'll never bring this up again."

Later on, Ivy would wonder just what it said about her that she would take being described as "secondhand and broken" as praise, that she was as flattered as she was at this most backhanded of compliments. But for now, she enjoyed the sweetest moments of silence that she could remember in a long time.

* * *

"So how are you doing?"

Ivy picked at her salad a bit before answering Tom. "I'm fine."

"No, really, how are you?"

"Really, I'm fine."

"I know this can't be easy for you."

"It isn't. I really could have used some time to properly mourn the death of my dream. But," she smiled sadly, "a girl's gotta eat, you know?"

"It's not dead. There are other shows, you know. They're workshopping a new _Sex and the City _musical since the movies did so well and I know the casting director. You'd make a great Samantha."

She laughed and said in mock indignation, "First of all, I'm definitely a Carrie. You know that." Then she sighed and her mood darkened. "But it _is_ dead and you know that as well as I do. I had everything going for me with Marilyn. I had you in my corner, I knew all the songs from the start, I did the first recording sessions. I'm pushing 30, I've spent ten years in the ensemble, and I've never gotten a role. So if I couldn't get this part, what part _can_ I hope to get? And there will always be more Karens. There are millions of girls out there just like her." She laughed again, this time softly and half-heartedly at the irony. "I told her that once, you know. I said it to hurt her, but now it just scares the hell out of me."

"You're wrong. You were wrong then and you're wrong now. There aren't millions of girls like her. Karen's special. And so are you."

Tom loved to baby her and she normally enjoyed it; she got little enough affection from her actual parents. But this time she wasn't in the mood for it. Far from reassuring her, it only fed all of her insecurities, making her feel like the slow, dull child whose parents would pat her on the head and tell her that she was still special to them and they would love her even if she never amounted to anything. She appreciated the love, but right now, she was feeling the "never amounted to anythung" part of that statement particularly strongly.

"You're just saying that," she replied, thinking that a more accurate, level-headed assessment of her career would benefit her more. "It's fine, really. Not everyone can be a star, Broadway needs chorus girls too. I'm fine." It was a lie now but she thought that maybe, just maybe, in a few months, it would stop being one. Not likely, but there was a chance and that's what she was going with. "And don't tell me my time will come. Because I'm almost out of time."

"You've had some bad luck. But luck evens out. And there will always be other shows and there will always be other parts. Julia and I will write other shows and you know what we think of you. You'll always..."

"...be your pet chorus girl?" she interrupted sourly.

"Oh God," he said, rolling his eyes and aghast. "You heard that, didn't you?"

"I think the entire building heard that," she responded.

"It's okay, really," she continued, "I always got that sense from Julia anyways. No, no, let me finish," she said as Tom's mouth opened to protest. "She wouldn't have meant it as harshly as Derek had, she would have said it with a good bit of affection, but she's always looked at me the same way she would have looked at some stray that followed Leo home that they decided to keep. I'm the little lost puppy dog that followed you home and that you adopted. I think they all think that, actually. I dont't mind it, really, I don't think they resent me for it or anything."

"Well," he replied, "how could I resist those big, sad puppy dog eyes of yours?"

She smiled, and he reached forward to pet her. She bowed her head and leaned forward to let him.

"Now who's a good girl?" he asked, stroking her hair and scratching her lightly behind her ears, "who's a good girl? Yes you are, yes you are..."

They both dissolved into giggles.

Finally, he noticed the time. They finished their meal and started to head back to the studio.

"Hey," he said, "before I forget, I've had this idea for the show and I think you'll be pleased."

"You're giving me 'Second Hand White Baby Grand'?" she asked.

"What?" he asked in initial puzzlement. "Oh, yeah, you must have overheard _that_ little discussion too."

"Thin walls," she explained, smirking. "Although that's a little ensemble secret I probably should have kept. They'll hate me if they find out I told you and cost them some good dirt."

"No, it's something else. Just that I had this idea, Julia and I have been working on it a bit and I think Derek will go for it. You'll like it."

"Tom?" she said, softly.

"Yes?"

"Don't tell me what it is. I don't want to know anything about it. At least not until you're sure it's going to happen. I've been burned enough times on this show from getting my hopes up and I don't know if I can take any more."


	5. Chapter 5

They had continued working on the finale after lunch.

"Karen!" yelled Derek, "What I need from you in the song is a combination of lost innocence becoming steely determination turning into bittersweet triumph with a hint of controlled anger. What you're giving me instead is simple petulance, all the way through. From the top, again."

"..._you don't forget me_..." Ivy heard Karen sing once again. As if there was any chance of anyone forgetting anything with the number of times they had run through this portion of the show today.

"No, no, no. What happened to the way you did it in Boston?"

"I'm _trying_," said Karen.

"It's not about trying. Just get it right."

"It'd be easier if you'd just tell me how and tell me just what you want instead of throwing out vague feelings you want me to capture."

"I did," was his terse reply, "but very well. Do it_ like you did it in Boston_. Now let's take it from the top again."

She got through the first verse, and then the chorus, before Derek called a stop again.

"I'll get it when it's time," said Karen.

The most infuriating thing, Ivy thought, was that Iowa would probably do exactly that. She'd continue to look uninspired and unprepared in rehearsal, Derek would yell at her some more, Opening Night would approach, Eileen would fret, Tom would quietly say something about how Ivy was always ready to step in, Ivy would get her own hopes up to no avail, and then when the curtain rose and it came time to do it in front of an audience, Derek would whisper a few encouraging words to Iowa and then, inexplicably and seemingly out of nowhere, she'd pull it off, effortlessly and flawlessly.

Well, it wouldn't play out _exactly_ like that this time, Ivy thought to herself; this time, she wasn't getting her hopes up. She knew better.

"Oh for God's sake. Ivy!"

Hearing her name had interrupted her thoughts, but had also thrown her for a loop. Derek had kept talking after calling for her, but she had heard nothing. But she could feel how every eye in the studio had turned towards her.

"What?"

"I said, why don't you have a go at it? I'm sure you know it."

She was pretty sure that she did indeed know the finale, even though that fact made her feel somewhat pathetic; the song, after all, would not be written until long after her brief, abortive tenure as Marilyn. She had never been meant to sing it. But Derek had known her well enough to know that she would.

Ivy hesitated. She could remember the sheer humiliation she had felt when she had been the one getting a singing lesson and now the tables had neatly turned.

She could just say no, she told herself. She could be the bigger woman here and refuse to participate in this spectacle. Listening to Karen that first time had done nothing for Ivy except humiliate her and she doubted that singing now would do anything for either Karen or the show. She liked to think of herself as a good person, someone who wouldn't wish what she had felt that day on anyone else. And it wasn't like how well she sang here would mean anything. It might bring her some claps and cheers from her friends and some fleeting, illusory sense of triumph, but that was it. She couldn't impress anyone enough to make a real difference, not enough to get her a part or a song.

But what if, just maybe...

She felt a tendril of hope rise in her stomach as it fluttered.

Maybe things would come full circle and...?

No. Just no. She squashed those thoughts, ruthlessly and immediately. She had just told herself that she wasn't getting drawn into this again. There was nothing that could result from that but more pain.

"Could I see the score?" she asked, stalling for time. Someone, she couldn't tell who, handed a copy over to her. She glanced at Karen, quickly and surreptitiously, but the brunette's face was as blank and unreadable as ever.

"Just take it from where she left off. Verse 2, after the first chorus."

Yes, she could say refuse, she mused. It might even go some ways towards making amends with Iowa if she did. But Ivy had never claimed to be a saint and Karen Cartwright just wasn't someone who could move her sympathy meter very far. Besides, a refusal wouldn't change the fact that Derek had asked in the first place, and when it had been her turn to watch and "learn", that part had carried just as much of a sting for her as Karen's role in it had.

And the performance? It _would_ mean something, she realized. Maybe not for Derek and Marilyn and the show, but it would for Ivy. This was more than just a chance to show up Iowa, it was a chance to prove something about herself. No, not only that but to prove something _to _herself. She thought she deserved the part, that she was better than Karen. Now was her chance to show it. How could she pass that up?

She couldn't.

She looked directly at Derek, took a breath, and began.

"_But forget every man who I ever met_

_'Cause they_ _all__ only lived to control..._"

And she sang her heart out.

Top _that_, Iowa.

* * *

Not that Karen would get the chance to try any time soon. Spontaneous applause had interrupted the rehearsal. A gratified Ivy locked her eyes on to Derek, but the director looked more pensive than excited or impressed.

"Karen, pick it up at the start of the third verse," he said, his voice breaking through the din.

Karen began. And she rose to the challenge.

"_There are some in this world_

_Who need special care_..."

When she finished, Derek voiced the consensus in the room.. "That was better than Boston."

He didn't say whether it had been better than Ivy's verse. If anything, he looked like he didn't know the answer to that question, as if he firmly believed that question _couldn't_ be answered.

"Now let's take it from the top again. No, wait, hold on a moment..."

Ivy looked at Tom, but he and the rest of the creative team seemed as confused as she and the rest of the company were. Evidently, this was entirely one of Derek's ideas, and they had no clue what he was thinking either. And he wasn't saying anything, just staring straight ahead and fiddling with his pen. The pause continued.

Finally he spoke.

"Okay, I need everyone to listen. We'll take it from the top again through the first chorus and to the beginning of the second verse. Only this time, I need the ensemble to move downstage while they're doing the tableaus. Ivy, you need to arrive at center stage when the first chorus ends. Karen, you'll be moving stage right at the same time. Chorus, I need you to keep moving and join Karen once...no, strike that, you'll go immediately back upstage...no, never mind, just stop when Ivy reaches center stage, I'll figure the rest out later. Got it? Well, what are we waiting for then? Let's get on with it."

The first attempt was extremely ragged. Because the tableaus had never been intended to move, they had all had to improvise their own modifications to the choreography to adjust for the new directions and a few slip-ups were inevitable. The second time was better, somewhat. The tableau had managed to move in synch with itself, a testament to the skill and chemistry present in the ensemble. It had only taken one attempt for everyone to find a common pace while moving downstage. On the third attempt, the timing was still off, but improving.

"Stop. "

He paused again before delivering his verdict..

"Okay, that can work. Ladies and gentlemen, you can safely forget the vast majority of what you have learned today. The finale will now be a duet between Marilyn and her shadow self. Tom, Julia, I need to speak with you. Karen, Ivy, I suggest you spend some time working on it. The rest of you may leave. Good night."

**A/N: Many thanks to everyone who's left a review. They are much appreciated.**


	6. Chapter 6

"That was a good job back there."

She laughed, harshly. "Oh please. That had nothing to do with me, it was all about you." She hadn't meant to be so hostile, but there was something about Karen, something beyond even how Iowa was now Marilyn instead of her, that could make Ivy lose her composure. After all, what Karen had just said was an innocuous statement, really, a perfectly harmless little compliment, said flatly and without enthusiasm, yes, but also politely and without sarcasm. Ivy knew it should not have set her off like it had and that it reflected poorly on her that it did. But nevertheless, she had felt the anger rise in her chest as soon as she heard yet another of the little inanities that constantly flowed from Karen's mouth in that bright, chripy voice of hers.

"Whatever. Let's just get started and get this over with," was Karen's reply.

Ivy laughed again. Her irritation, she thought, was no less irrational than the way Karen had seemingly been simply gifted everything by the gods of the theater. Everything except, evidently, even a single clue about what it was really like to actually be a part of a show and how the world of the theater actually worked.

"You still don't get it, do you? You think Derek actually expects us to rehearse? That's adorable," she said. "Come on, think about it a little here. He knows that we both know the song, he still needs to have it scored as a duet and he has to figure out who's going to sing which part and when we're going to sing together. That's why he had to talk to Tom and Julia. So what is there for us to actually work on? He just said that to get us alone in a room together. This, right here, what we're doing right now, whatever this is? This is exactly what he wants from us."

"And why would he want that?"

"Because I just got you to do the finale better than you ever have before, that's why, " Ivy said sullenly, "and if giving me a verse or just throwing us together by ourselves like this can make that happen every time, well, that's what he'll do. Believe me, I know him, I know how he thinks, and Derek will do what it takes to make sure his star can shine."

"Since you know everything about Derek then..."

Hold on, Ivy thought. There was something about the way Karen had said "know everything about Derek," an inflection in her voice that seemed to suggest that... Was Iowa really... Yes. Yes she was. She was very much still hung up on that.

"Oh my God," Ivy said, rolling her eyes. "This again? Okay, fine. Yeah, I slept with Derek. You have the part now anyways. Maybe it's time to grow up, get over it, and move on. Believe me, it's caused me more pain than it's ever caused you. And by the way, how arrogant do you have to be to think that there's no way I could possibly have actually deserved the part and the only reason I ever got it instead of you was that I slept with the director?"

"Hmm, let me see," Karen said, "we were so close that they had to do an extra round of callbacks. Then you slept with Derek after I told him no and then suddenly, you got Marilyn. So, yeah, excuse me if I think that one little thing might have made the difference."

"What do you want from me? No, really, I want to know. You have the part now. He's made his choice quite clear. You won and I lost. So why is this even still a thing? What do you want me to say? That you deserved it from the beginning? First of all, not that it's _any_ of your business_ at all_ but I didn't sleep with him for the part, and second, there were four people in that room, three of them had no interest in sleeping with me, and all of them picked me over you. That you're just so much better than me because you'd _never _do something like that? Okay, fine, let's pretend that ...

"You started this," Karen interrupted. "All of it. I said something nice to you today and you just decided to be a bitch becauase you were jealous. From the very first day of rehearsals, you've been nothing but a bitch to me. So don't ask me what I want from you because I don't know. I didn't start this. Any of it. Oh, and I didn't tell Derek no because I think I'm better than you, I told him no because I am _in a relationship_. With someone that you slept with, in case you've forgotten. So I really don't know why I'm standing here letting the person who ruined my life yell at me like this."

"_I _ruined _your _life?" Ivy couldn't decide if that made her want to laugh, cry, or scream the most. "Get over yourself. My boyfriend was cheating on me too. At least you don't have to deal with that while you're watching all of your dreams being shattered one by one, by someone who doesn't have a tenth of the commitment, experience, or passion for..."

"Is that all you ever talk about? I'm talking about a relationship that has lasted four years and with a potential lifetime of love and happiness, and all you're talking about is a part."

"You know what? I didn't make Dev sleep with me. He decided to cheat on you all on his own. And by the way? He would have slept with any woman that was willing to have him that night, I just happened to be the first one he ran in to. So stop blaming me for your failed engagement."

"Fine, I'll do that as soon as you stop blaming me for your..."

The door of the studio opened, and a smiling set of ensemble members ran in, cutting Karen off in mid-sentence. A cheery Jessica entered first, saying "Come on! We were getting tired of waiting for you two. Drinks?" A surprised Karen looked at Ivy who nodded silently at Jessica.

They walked out of the studio, Karen and Jessica up ahead in front of the others, both chatting away.

Ivy sidled up towards Sam and asked, "You heard that, didn''t you?"

"Every word of it," he confirmed. "We really were just waiting when we heard voices and Bobby _insisted _that we stay and listen."

"And you decided to stop us before we went too far?"

"Yep," answered Sam.

"It's how we know he's gay after all," quipped Dennis. "No straight boy would ever, _ever_ break up a catfight as good as the one you two had going."

Ivy laughed exuberantly along with the others, and found that the tension had left the building.

* * *

"So how are you really?"

Ivy stared at Sam for a moment before grinning wryly and saying, "Well played, my friend, very well played. Get me drunk before you start with the questions."

He nodded in acknowledgment and returned her smile before saying, "Well? How are you handling this?"

"One day at a time, Sam, one day at a time." Then she laughed. "Wow. I'm making this sound like I'm an addict."

"I just...

Her eyes suddenly flashed in anger. "And don't you _dare _bring up the pills. I haven't had a single one since..."

She stopped abruptly, suddenly aware that she had almost blurted out "Boston" and given away the secret of how she'd spent that night. Fortunately, she realized, the pause could just as easily be a reference to her unexpected star turn in her final show with _Heaven on Earth_. Sam didn't inquire further.

"I wasn't, I swear. I was going to say I just wanted to make sure you were okay."

"Oh. Thanks then."

"You didn't really answer the question."

"Well, after two consecutive days, it's looking like _having words_ with Karen may just have become my new post-rehearsal ritual, but hey, at least today's fireworks didn't end with me sitting outside in tears," she said, more lightly than she felt. "I'd call that progress." Then she dropped the airy faux cheer and her voice took on a sardonic tone. "So I'm well on my way to being comfortable with my own mediocrity, thank you very much."

She had expected him to respond with the usual spiel about how she was far from mediocre, how she shouldn't give up and that her break would come. She wouldn't have believed a word of it, but it would have made her feel good to pretend that she did. It was nice, after all, to know that someone thought enough of her to believe that and sometimes, she could even fool herself into thinking that it was true. But she didn't get it.

Instead, her friend's voice carried an edge to it when he replied.

"Get over yourself, Ives."

"What?" She was less indignant than she was simply shocked.

"You heard me. Tell me, do you think I'm mediocre?"

"What? No, of course not. Why?" The shock had turned to confusion.

"Because I've never gotten a part either. So what is it, Ivy? Do you think you're better than me?"

Now she was annoyed. "That's different and you know it. You're a dancer and a much better one than me. The ensemble is what you trained for. I'm an actress."

"Well, I think you're a pretty damned good dancer, and the casting directors who keep hiring you for the ensemble agree. So the way I see it, you can either be thankful that you've got an amazing voice for a dancer and be glad that you get to go out on that stage every night, or if you still say you're an actress, you can go out and get yourself a role. Or you can keep wallowing. Your choice."

Irritation had turned to outright anger. "And you think I haven't been going to auditions? That I just expected to be given a part? That I haven't worked my ass off looking for a break? Marilyn was my last, best chance."

"Really? Because my agent tells me about new auditions and workshops and recording sessions that are going on all the time. I know yours does too. As good as you think you are, you don't need any behind-the-scenes help from Tom. So no, Marilyn wasn't your last chance. And yeah, the clock's ticking for you. All the more reason to get to it."

He sighed. "Look, Ivy, I'm sorry for yelling at you. But you needed someone to talk some sense to you."

She laughed. "You know, Tom was so much nicer when he was telling me to find other parts to go out for."

"Yeah, well, he's like the dad who will always see you as his little princess. I've had to deal with enough shit from you to know better."

"Oh, thanks a lot," she added sarcastically.

"And I've also seen enough from you to know you're better than this. So, here's to tough love and new possibilities." He raised his glass. She raised hers, and drained it.

As she waited for a fresh drink to be delivered, Ivy spied Jessica speaking animatedly with Karen. "Oh go ahead and listen in," she heard Sam tell her. "I know you're going to try it anyways."

She smiled and did just that.

* * *

"...and like I've been telling you, you really do need to cut her some slack here. And I know..."

Jessica was a real sweetheart, Ivy thought. A bit of a party girl, but always bubbly and positive, so much so that she could occasionally come across as thoughtless because of it. Certainly, Ivy could remember thinking that she'd been abandoned in favor of Karen whenever she saw Jessica running up to Iowa for an excited hug, especially since it usually happened after Karen had gotten some other bit of good fortune, often at Ivy's expense. But Jessica really was just a friendly girl who could be happy for Karen while still feeling for Ivy. Of course she would want to try and be the peacemaker.

And that explained Karen today, Ivy supposed. It must have been why Iowa was so impossible to read. She was trying to play nice.

"...but she started it."

"Oh my God, are we 12 years old now?" Jessica exclaimed.

"But she did!"

"Just proving my point, Iowa."

"From the first rehearsal..."

"You're still upset about that?" Jessica asked, interrupting. "I thought you were past it already. You really _were _screwing up back then."

"She didn't have to be a bitch about it."

Jessica sighed, "Here's the thing about Ivy. She's not a bad person but she's incredibly insecure. Like, not just your normal needs-attention-and-positive-reinforcement type of insecure, but truly ridiculous levels. We don't know all of the reasons why, I don't think even Sam does and he's known her for forever. It's can be a bit much sometimes, but we put up with it because we all like her and respect her a lot. She felt threatened, so she lashed out at you."

"Threatened?" Karen asked skeptically. "What did she have to feel threatened about? I was brand new and she was sleeping with..."

"Okay, that's another thing. You need to drop that right now. You weren't there when Ivy told us about Derek. You have no idea how mortified she was at the idea she might have gotten the part because she slept with him."

"So why'd she do it?"

That made Jessica laugh and repeat Karen's question in disbelief. "'So why'd she do it?' Oh my God, you're serious, aren't you? Come on, look at him. I know I've seen you checking him out during rehearsal. He's a total fox."

"I have _not_ been checking out Derek!" Both women began giggling in response.

"Yeah, right. Anyways," Jessica continued, "you know that we don't have the longest shelf lives, right? I mean, I'm sure you've heard this from your parents. 'But what if you break your leg? What if it doesn't work out?' 'How long can you do this?' Right?"

Karen nodded.

"So you get why the longer you've been in the chorus, the crazier you get? And Ivy's been hustling and working her ass off for ten years before she finally gets a break. Then she sees you, the person who almost took it away from her, and you're singing over everyone and taking all the attention. And she's already insecure to start with, so yeah, of course she starts feeling threatened. Sure, she could have been nicer and handled it better but you've got to understand where she's coming from."

"And she slept with Dev."

"Look, nobody's saying you have to be best friends or that you don't have your reasons or anything, but just give her some space and remember that she's got some issues to work out, okay?"

"Fine," Karen said without enthusiasm.

Jessica changed the subject. "So, you and Dev. Better?"

"More like weird and awkward. I mean, what do you do when you call an engagement off but don't completely break up? He sleeps on the couch and says he's sorry every chance he gets and that we're working through it, but we aren't really. We haven't had that big fight over it, you know, the one where everything's on the table and we just have it out, and I just think we need to if we're really going to get past this. We haven't even talked about it, like, really talked about it, you know?"

"Yeah."

"I think he's looking at this job at DC but he hasn't told me yet because I think we both know that if he does take it, it's over. We really aren't in a place where we can handle long distance or even really want to try. And he doesn't really want to have to make that decision yet."

Ivy stopped listening; eavesdropping about this felt like it was crossing some sort of line. Not that she hadn't crossed enough lines already when it came to Dev, but still, she felt like she should stop.

She thought back to that night she'd spent with Dev. Not that she remembered that much, the alcohol had seen to that. Just that she had been reeling, devastated and despondent, and had recognized a kindred spirit sitting at the bar. She had just been desperate not to have to spend the night alone and she saw the same in his eyes. He'd said something about being passed over for a job in favor of someone he neither liked nor particularly respected and about being rejected by his significant other, both things that Ivy could definitely relate to. They introduced themselves, and there was a pause as they each recognized precisely who the other was and just how that had raised the stakes of this encounter. She couldn't remember who had made the next move, but however it happened, they'd went ahead with it. It was a mistake, of course, something they had both realized in the morning, but she'd already apologized for that mistake and she didn't know what else she could really do about it.

She shrugged and saw that her drink had arrived.


	7. Chapter 7

Ivy had an audition the next day, some off-Broadway production from some kid fresh out of school with a daddy who was a big name in Hollywood. She doubted it would be any good, but with that kid's connections, chances were that somebody, somewhere would find a bigger stage for it and a part was a part.

Not that she truly begrudged the kid his connections; she couldn't, really, not when she knew that she could have taken that path herself but had quite definitively rejected it when she had decided that she would be known in the theater world as Ivy Lynn, not Ivy Conroy and not even her birth name of Ivy Trumbull. It was a bit unfair to Daddy, who may have been generally ignorant of the theater, always busy, and usually more than a bit distant but despite all of that did clearly love her, to reject his name just as she had rejected the Conroy name and everything that came with it, she thought. But too many people in the community knew that the renowned Broadway star Leigh Conroy had married an industry outsider named Andrew Trumbull and later moved to Greenwich. And besides, Lynn was still his mother's, her grandmother's first name and the middle name that he had given her.

Occasionally, she would ask herself how things might have turned out and where she would be right now had she decided to claim her birthright. Maybe, no, probably, it would have gotten her a part, she had told herself, and it was even possible that she might have been able to persuade herself that her mother's name might have made a few people give her a closer look but that it was her own talent that had given them something that they had wanted to see. But even if she did manage to convince herself of that, and she knew herself well enough to know that it was unlikely, every program of every show she would ever appear in would still say that she was "the daughter of Tony-winner Leigh Conroy." And even if she managed to reach the summit of her profession and win a Tony, she would still be unable to escape her mother's shadow; those awards would then become part of the Conroy legacy and the writers and critics would all describe her as the heir to the Conroy acting dynasty. She had said no thanks to all of that a long time ago. Yes, she wondered sometimes about what might have been, but even in her recently increasing desperation, she had never regretted her decision to become Ivy Lynn.

This particular audition had turned into another rejection, albeit one of the more pleasant ones she'd had recently. The kid had taken one look at her bountiful curves and her platinum-blonde hair, shook his head, and told her that she was "gorgeous, but way too glamorous. Weird, I know, and it's kind of a good problem for you to have, but still, it's a problem for this part. You look like a million bucks and I need someone who looks a lot more low-rent to play a struggling single mother who has trouble paying the bills. Sorry."

She had laughed good-naturedly at that, and found herself genuinely amused; this was far from the first time that being buxom had cost her a job, but it was easily the most flattering way that it had ever happened. Usually, she was simply told that she had the "wrong body type" or that she was too "um...voluptuous," which was always said with that pause in the beginning as the casting director searched for the most diplomatic euphemism for "fat." She had started keeping track of which appeared most often, with "voluptuous" edging out "Rubenesque", "curvy", "buxom," and "zaftig." And occasionally, they would just come right out and say it and tell her that she was too heavy and that her weight made her unsuitable for the part.

Not that these rejections had really bothered her, at least not apart from the fact that they meant that she wasn't going to be playing the part. She had a great many insecurities, but her looks had never been one of them. Back in school, a teenaged Ivy had been one of the first girls to have her figure fill in and she continued to be among the most well-endowed of the girls in her class. She had always gotten plenty of attention from the boys thanks to that, and it had made her comfortable and confident with both her body and with being flirty and sexy.

She smiled and thanked the kid for his time before leaving.

Checking her e-mail on her phone, she'd learned that someone, either Tom or her agent, had passed her name on to the creative team for the _Sex and the City _musical after all. She had just received a message telling her to come in and read for both Carrie and Samantha.

Now that she was in a brighter, less self-pitying mood, she realized what a tremendous opportunity it really was. Unlike most new musicals being developed, it was a shoo-in to reach Broadway and reach Broadway quickly thanks to the success of both the movies and the HBO show and the large, dedicated fanbase that would provide a built-in audience. And thanks to that fanbase, the producers would not feel like they needed to go out and cast a big-name for the musical. The concept, the original source material, Candace Bushnell, and the HBO show - all of that would be the star.

In fact, not being a star might actually work to her advantage, Ivy thought, as she would be less demanding and costly for the producers. And at the very least, she would audition purely on her own merit. And she knew what she brought to the table. As that kid had just confirmed, she could bring both the sex and the glamor.

Things were looking up.

* * *

She checked the rest of her messages with a raised eyebrow. There were about twice as many as she'd expected, most of them gossipy missives and links to theater blogs filled with rumors about _Bombshell_. Evidently, Michael Swift was gone again, this time of his own volition. He'd gotten another leading role and had taken it, probably tired of the lingering tension with Julia and of being the subject of the show's worst-kept secret (Ivy thought her own nocturnal activies with members of the _Bombshell _family and extended family were too widely known to even really qualify as a secret to begin with), a secret which was now spreading to the theater community at large. Too bad, she thought, he was talented and she'd gotten along well with him, but it was hardly a shock.

And then there were the surprisingly numerous rumors surrounding that little ball of smarm, Ellis.

Ivy knew his type well. They were the ones who loved "the the-a-tah" (always said in that affected, drawn-out way) more than they actually loved theater, who loved productions more than they loved shows, the ones who would get more excited about reading some bit of gossip like these rumors than they would about witnessing a tremendous performance by a brilliant cast. She'd never cared for them much. She was comfortable with the behind the scenes drama, and at times she even enjoyed it (or at least listening to gossip about it), and she had nothing but contempt for Iowa's naivete regarding it, but her true passion had always been for what happened on the stage, not what happened backstage. And she had no idea why anyone who felt otherwise would ever choose to go into something as demanding, fickle, and often thankless as the theater. But regardless of how mystifying they seemed to Ivy, there was no shortage of these types hanging around Broadway.

Ellis wanted to be a producer as badly as she wanted to be a star, that much was obvious. But good producers were usually people who had enough passion for theater to want to work in the industry and combined that with enough sense to realize that they had much more business acumen than artistic ability. Ellis's kind invariably became the producers who were more passionate about being producers than they were about whatever they produced and they were, with only one or two arguable exceptions, all decidedly mediocre at their jobs.

She couldn't remember ever giving Ellis more than a minute's worth of thought before this, even if he had become a welcome ally of convenience while they had been in Boston. They had never really had any reason to talk to each other much beyond that. And she had never been able to come up with a truly convincing explanation for why he had ended up helping her. He definitely had his own agenda, but it was so opaque and his possible motivations so incomprehensible to her that she had given up trying to figure it out and simply accepted it. Maybe he had a crush on her. Now _that _would be something, she thought, chuckling to herself. And it seemed as good a reason as anything else.

Even with how little she knew about him, though, she knew that these particular rumors just couldn't be true. There was simply no way that anyone but Tom and Julia could have written the show, and nobody as ambitious as Ellis was would be stupid enough to commit career suicide by claiming otherwise or threatening a lawsuit if they didn't have any hard evidence. As for the Rebecca-related pieces, they were classic tabloid fodder; they were simply _too _juicy, _too_ lurid, _too _sensational to have actually happened. Slept with a manager to get a meeting? Confessed to poisoning an A-lister? No, that was just the standard mix of sex, (near)-death, and celebrity that made for a good story, all made up just to sell papers.

Ivy knew there had to be _something _weird going on though. Eileen was having trouble finding a theater and a show with out-of-town previews as successful as _Bombshell_'s had been would normally have a venue lined up and be on the fast track to opening night. And now with all of the insider blogs labeling _Bombshell_ a "troubled production," the already rocky and abbreviated production history, the search for a third DiMaggio, a potential lawsuit, and a potential police investigation? It was not going to get any easier.

She shrugged. There was nothing she could do about any of that, it was all going to be decided at levels far above her own.

Nevertheless, she had a feeling that rehearsal was going to be very interesting today.


	8. Chapter 8

"As all of you _undoubtedly_ know already," Derek said to open today's rehearsal, "we have lost our DiMaggio again. Fortunately there is still an abundance of fodder for us to rehearse. Places for the opener, people."

Well, he had started with a surprise, Ivy thought. Not that he had been so dismissive about the gossip surrounding the show, that was classic him. But they had ended by working on the finale yesterday, and he had indicated that he had liked the changes and would be implementing them and, presumably, working on them today. Of course, she wasn't exactly impartial, she rather liked that she was going to get a verse and maybe more in this new version of the finale, but regardless, it had seemed that would be the most logical place to start.

"Ivy, I need you downstage and right of Karen. Jessica, take Ivy's spot as a shadow self. Make a note, the spotlight will be solely on Karen until I say otherwise, with only a dim backlighting for the shadow selves, as before. Nobody should be able to see Ivy until I say so. We'll work this out if we add it later on."

It was then that Ivy noticed a thick stack of papers on the table where he sat, much thicker than a simple rescoring of the finale from a solo to a duet would require. Her heart leaped, and for the first time since Boston, she allowed herself hope when it came to _Bombshell_. Could it be...?

Yes. Yes it could be. For the opener, at least, and probably more.

An expanded role!

"Ivy, Karen. You both know the song so this should not be too complicated, but here is the latest version of 'Let Me Be Your Star.' Okay, let's go."

The beginning was the same, the curtain opening on a stage with the lights off and the shadow selves telling Marilyn "nobody loves you" and then the spotlight going on and Karen beginning the first verse.

"Okay, stop. Now, when Karen finishes with '_Norma Jean's gone, she's moving on..._' I need the spotlight on Karen off and the second spotlight to turn on and show Ivy, who will be doing Marilyn poses while moving to..."

He got up and walked out to a position somewhat right of centerstage. "...to about here. Ivy, the second verse is yours, from _'Her smile and your fantasies_' down through the first time we hear '_Let me be your star_.' Start from where we left off and we'll go to there."

They only got halfway through it the first time.

"Stop. Do it more gracefully."

She didn't make it much further the second time.

"More fluid motions. The Marilyn poses are the important part of what we're trying to show, but they have to be organic to the movement across the stage."

The third time was better.

"Adequate for now, we'll work on it some more. Moving on. Karen, the next verse is yours. You'll start with '_Flash back on a girl_... But the absolutely critical part is that you must, _must _be in full Marilyn costume by this point. You should have gone backstage and changed while the spotlight is on Ivy. The rest of the company can help you. But you have to be back by the time Ivy gets to her new spot and finishes her part. Linda, have someone grab a costume so we can try it out later. Once you finish changing go to this spot over here," he said, pointing to a spot to stage left that mrirored Ivy's across center stage. "Be there by the time she's done. At this point, spotlight goes off Ivy and back on to Karen, who will take it from _'Flash back on a girl_' through '_The drama, the laughter, the tears just like pearls_' and '_It's all there for the taking, it's magic we'll be making_' until the second '_Let me be your star_.'Okay?"

Karen nodded and Derek continued.

"Now, both spotlights will be on at this point... are you getting this down, Linda? Good. Okay, both spotlights on. Next verse, you alternate lines. Karen, '_I'll just have to forget the hurt that came before_,' Ivy, '_Forget what used to be_,' Karen, '_The past is on the cutting room floor_,' and Ivy, '_The future is here with me_.' You both take the _'Choose me!_' You should both be slowly moving downstage and towards center together and approaching each other at this point and the backlighting on the shadow selves should cut off. Shadow selves will then go backstage and get ready for their next scenes. Ivy, you have '_Fade up on a star_' down to '_All the love and the lights that surround her_' and you should be moving faster while you're singing so you're slightly in front of Karen. Karen, take it from _'Someday she'll think twice_', Ivy you'll provide the backing vocals You should also be slowing down as you move so that Karen can overtake you. Karen, '_She'll do all that she can, for the love of one man_,' and then slow down so she can catch up. Ivy, '_And for millions who look from afar_.' Take the rest of the song together. You should be even with each other and, at most, shoulder's width apart. Continue to approach each other until by the time you're ready for the last line, the final '_Let me be your star_,' you're standing shoulder to shoulder. Okay, let's start working on it. From the top..."

* * *

"Again."

"Again."

"Better. Again."

"Again."

"Again."

"That was worse."

The Marilyn and Norma Jean costumes had arrived in the studio over the lunch break and they had spent the entire afternoon session still running through the initial Marilyn costume change in the revamped opener but they, or more accurately Karen, had yet to get it right once. The staccato of Derek's voice ordering yet another attempt, punctuated by his occasional commentary, was starting to become tiresome. Meanwhile, the director was looking increasingly exasperated.

"Again."

"Again."

"Well congratulations. For the first time, the Marilyn wig looks only _somewhat_ askew on you, not comically so. Again."

"Again."

"Again."

And now, exasperation was beginning to turn in to resignation.

"Can I impress upon you once again how absolutely critical this costume change is? What we're putting in _cannot work_ otherwise. We must see Norma Jean become Marilyn and we must see that Norma Jean and Marilyn are the same person, while her public persona is someone else entirely. That's why we made all those changes today, to emphasize that. But we'll have to take it out unless our Norma Jean can bloody well _actually become_ Marilyn. Now again."

Ivy listened, seething. _Of course_ the one time that Karen's incompetence in rehearsal managed to force Derek's hand, it would still be at Ivy's expense. Some cruel deity must have decided that she simply wasn't allowed to have a single shred of happiness when it came to this show. And this time it had even managed to fool her into getting her hopes up again, only to make it hurt even more when they were dashed. She clenched her fist in frustration, her nails digging into her palm so hard that they drew blood.

"Again."

"Again."

"The best yet. You managed to get changed properly and get to the spot on time. Now if you can do that without sounding like a galloping herd of wild stallions while you're moving, we can continue."

"No, no, no."

"Again."

"Again."

And then Ivy snapped and could take it no longer. "Oh for fuck's sake, Iowa," she snarled. "It's not that fucking difficult. Just..."

"What is your probem?" Karen shot back. "Everyone keeps telling me to give you your space and everything and God knows I'm trying but somebody besides me needs to tell you to just move on and deal with your shit. I'm sorry about everything and whatever but I'm not going to apologize for being Marilyn. Grow up."

"Ah, yes," Derek interjected dryly before Ivy could respond, "It is getting rather late, isn't it? Still, I do believe that we have a few minutes remaining in rehearsal, so unless I am very much mistaken, your daily round of verbal combat has begun somewhat prematurely today."

"Don't mock me," snapped Ivy. "You know we're not going to get anything else done today since _she_ can't do better than this. So you might as well just let us get on with it."

Derek actually looked bemused at first, and then his expression turned thoughtful before he surprised the entire studio by saying, "Actually, perhaps you would like to work with Ms. Cartwright to find the solution? It is, after all, 'not that fucking difficult.'"

She stood in wide-eyed shock before dumbly nodding.

* * *

"Are you even trying?" asked Ivy, wondering if it was sabotage. Because there was no way this could actually be as complicated as Karen was making it seem. It wasn't easy, this particular on-the-fly costume change, Ivy knew that, but she could remember completing plenty of tricky costume changes before, some even more elaborate and with even less time than this one. She'd demonstrated it herself, hoping that Karen would watch and learn. But Karen had not, perhaps on purpose.

"What? Of course I am. Why wouldn't I?"

"Because you don't like me very much and you want to keep all of the spotlight, or at least keep it from me. If this doesn't work, you're still the star and it goes back to being your solo. That's why."

Iowa seemed genuinely offended at the suggestion, though, so maybe not.

"I don't think that way, Ivy. That's just you."

Ivy had opened her mouth to respond but saw Jessica, who had stayed behind with Sam to help out, give her a look. She bit her tongue and said only "Then prove it and get it right."

Karen's tall, lissome figure made for clean, graceful lines when she danced on the stage but it also meant that there were more places for the costumes to bunch or snag and made it harder to fit the wig correctly. Of course, all of her relentless fidgeting while she was trying to change didn't help...

Wait. Could it really be that simple?

It was worth a try.

"This time, just do the costume change. Don't worry about speed or doing it as fast as you can or anything. I mean, try to do it quickly, but don't think about speed. Just do it naturally. You've got longer legs than me, you can make up the time by going faster when you're moving to the spot."

Karen made it on time and the changing went more smoothly, but the wig had been jarred loose by her rushing to the spot.

"There's the wild horses Derek was talking about."

"Well, yeah, if you're going to take the move with a bunch of leaps," Ivy said, "_of course_ that's what you're going to get. You're taking dance classes, right?"

Karen nodded. Ivy paused to think.

"Okay, do it like, uh, okay, got it. Think of a brush step with a tendu at the end of each step and do that. The brushing action of your foot keeps you close to the floor which stops you from making a bunch of noise and also keeps you stable, which will help the wig stay on straight. The extension from the tendu helps you cover ground more quickly and the outward turn of your foot after each step also helps keep you stable."

It worked. Well, almost worked. Karen had still been slightly late.

"A little bit faster now."

"Almost."

"There. You got it. Good job."

Jessica and Sam had broken into applause and Ivy had a wide grin on. "Thank you," she told Karen.

"For what?" Karen asked. "And you were really good just now," she added sincerely.

Was this a detente? Ivy wondered.

She smiled wryly. "For trying. And that was nothing. You might not have gotten a chance to learn this, but there are a few useful things you can pick up after a decade in the chorus."

"It's good that you can joke about it, I guess," said Karen. "You didn't seem like you were getting better, but I guess you are."

"It wasn't a joke. And life's not a musical, Iowa. There aren't any climactic moments that result in epiphanies and changed lives and then an extended denouement in the second act. Character development takes some time in real life, sometimes it happens in fits and starts, and sometimes it's two steps forward and one step back. Real people can be complicated like that."

"I guess."

There was a pause before Ivy spoke again.

"This still doesn't mean we're best friends now."

Karen laughed. "That's _so_ not something you need to worry about. After all, you did sleep with my..."

"I'm sorry for that, by the way."

"I know."

* * *

They were heading out afterwards for drinks, the last part of their usual post-rehearsal routine, when Ivy spotted Derek in the halls.

"You couldn't wait until tomorrow morning? Or you didn't think we could do it?," she asked, dramatically. "Oh ye of little faith..."

"Actually..."

"Never mind. Wait. You knew what to do, didn't you? When did you figure out the solution?"

"Shortly after your little outburst," he said.

"So why...?"

"For the show."

She laughed mirthlessly. "Enigmatic is not nearly as appealing as you seem to think. Just so you know."

His laugh indicated considerably more amusement. "You'll figure it out soon enough."

She rolled her eyes, turned, and continued on her way before his voice made her stop again.

"Ivy."

"Yeah?"

"You did good today."

"Thanks."

**A/N: **Brush steps and tendus are real tap and ballet terms, respectively, and I did have an actual movement in mind when I included them in here. I have absolutely zero dance experience myself (apart from terribly cheesy dancing at wedding receptions), so I owe my knowledge of those terms to a pair of my real life friends who will almost certainly never read this but nevertheless deserve acknowledgment.

I also think I had a little jokey blurb written out about how, like my protagonist here, I'm insecure and need validation so please review, but deleted it because I found that it wasn't nearly as clever or witty when written out on the screen as it was in my head (or maybe it _is_ clever and that'was just the insecurity/need for validation? :) Yeah, I'm also quite meta). Nevertheless, I do enjoy and appreciate reviews so please leave one if you have any thoughts on this.


	9. Chapter 9

They spent the next morning's rehearsal finishing up with the revamped opener and the afternoon putting in the newly revamped finale, but Ivy noticed hopefully that while the stack of sheet music on the table in front had diminished, it had not disappeared. The day after, they worked on a new version of "Let's Be Bad," one where she took the majority of the lines and where she and Karen, dressed identically, would alternate between getting lost in the frenetic activity of the chorus upstage and then taking their turn in the spotlight. She thought she understood the concept behind the new staging but she wasn't sure it was being effectively conveyed. The idea, she thought, was to portray a part of Marilyn's gradual breakdown, how her public and private selves were each becoming subsumed with the other and the resulting effect. And she thought that the idea of Marilyn getting lost amidst all of the hoopla involved with being Marilyn Monroe was an effective motif, but there was something about the final product that she thought just didn't quite click. For starters, she looked nothing like Karen. When her presence was being used to signify the difference between the public and private Marilyns, that was an asset, but here, it was just distracting. But more importantly, the song itself just wasn't particularly conducive to becoming a duet. The verses were meant to be sung by one voice, at a rapidly increasing tempo, as the manic energy of the number continued to build. But the pauses that were required as each Marilyn handed off the spotlight and the song to her counterpart killed the momentum and the flow of the number, she thought. But Derek hadn't changed it back. He must have thought they could work it out with time and in any event, Ivy certainly wasn't about to complain about getting part of a song.

The next day's rehearsal featured a completely new scene and a new number that she was thoroughly excited about. Marilyn would be walking down the streets of New York and giving an interview to a journalist, speaking to the interviewer in her natural, off-screen persona and going, for the most part, unrecognized. After a brief comment on the lack of crowds flocking towards her from the interviewer, Marilyn woud ask "Do you want to see her?" The journalist would then say that he did, at which point Ivy would enter with Marilyn's trademark sashay and go to center stage as the rest of the ensemble flocked towards her. Then, Ivy would sing a new song, a jaunty, uptempo variation of "Let Me Be Your Star" entitled "Watch Me Be Your Star," while Karen as Marilyn continued walking stage left with the interviewer, played by Dennis. Then, the stage lights would dim, leaving only the lone spotlights on the two Marilyns. Once Ivy finished, Karen would walk slightly towards the center, leaving Dennis the journalist alone and in the dark before singing a further variation on the theme of "Let Me Be Your Star", a slower, more contemplative version entitled "Watch Her Be The Star" that was light on the instrumentation. It needed a great deal of work as well (in Ivy's own admittedly biased and somewhat catty opinion, Karen's interpretation of the piece tended to oscillate between "robotic and emotionless" and "treacly and maudlin," evidently unable to find a happy medium between the two), but it too had remained in the latest version of the show, bringing the number of duets she would have up to four.

And that stack of paper on the table was still not gone. Rumor had it that she might be getting a solo number and speaking lines. Enough to count as that long-awaited first principal role that would let her finally graduate from the chorus. No, it wasn't Marilyn. And yes, that still hurt a great deal. It had only been a week, after all, and even if it hadn't been so recent, she didn't think that she would ever completely get over how she lost that role, no matter what else she managed to achieve in her career. But this was still something, and something quite significant.

But the day had been exhilarating not just because of her additional stage and song time and the thought of getting a part. Days like this one were the days when even rehearsal was a thrilling reminder of why she loved the theater, why she had kept loving the theater even when she wasn't performing, even as she was putting in her hours as the seemingly eternal chorus girl. There would be far less glamorous rehearsal sessions later, and those days could be sheer drudgery, but days like this one when they were putting in a new scene or a new sequence were a complete joy. Being able to see the concepts behind the numbers and the scenes, being able to see everything come to life, see how each song told a part of a story, see how it meshed with the script, and see it all unfold on the stage. Seeing how her own small role in all of it fit in with the rest. Even seeing minor technical details, a costume change here and a stage direction there gave her a a little quiver of excitement, providing a little reminder that what they were doing was a live performance and that unlike in film, the logistics of a scene mattered in the theater.

When Ivy left the studio, it was with a smile that was both genuine and grand.

* * *

The smile didn't last for long.

She had almost not noticed Eileen standing by the side of the hallway as she left rehearsal, but then she heard her name being softly called out. Sam had offered, on behalf of the rest of the chorus, to wait for her but as she turned and saw the look of generic sympathy on the producer's face, she knew that it was bad news of some sort. So she sent her friends on ahead, saying that she'd meet them later.

"You've been fantastic over the past week."

She nodded her thanks and waited for the rest.

"It was truly great work. Derek, Tom, and Julia would never have put in lines and a solo for the part if it wasn't. The part actually qualifies as a principal role now, thanks to that."

The confirmation of the rumors mostly passed her by; instead, her attention focused on Eileen's odd phrasing as she spoke, the way she had said "the part" instead of "you," the way that she had strenuously avoided the use of the second person as she spoke to Ivy. It could mean only one thing.

"But 'my part' won't actually be my part, will it? It can't be, because of some horribly unfair reason that I can't think of right now but is nonetheless the reality of the situation. And you're truly sorry about it but you can't or won't change it because that's the reality of this business, as heartbreaking as it is. Tell me I'm wrong."

"You're not wrong. And believe me, I _am_ truly sorry," Eileen said, with sympathy turning to pity. She moved forward as if to console Ivy, who backed away, as if repulsed.

"I'll be fine," she lied. "Don't bother apologizing to me. Just tell me why."

"This business is, at the end of the day, a business. We put on shows because we love them but we put them on Broadway to make money."

"I'm not an idiot, Eileen, I know that. Just get on with it," she said, anger joining the disappointment in her voice

"Very well. Production insurance. We need it and we're having trouble getting it. Nobody wants to insure a show where one of the principal roles is portrayed by..."

"Portrayed by someone who's infamous for getting kicked out of a theater following a drug-fueled on-stage meltdown. Got it," she said.

"It's not a reflection on your talent or your character."

She laughed, bitterly. "Of course not. It's just business. Just a simple reason why this is the end of the line for me. Just tell me one thing, though. How much was it?"

"I don't think..."

"No, I want to know. Just tell me. How much did destroying my career and my life save you?"

"You can't think of it like that, it's about the show, it's not personal."

Personal. That triggered something in her mind, Tom had given her a _personal _promise that they wouldn't fire her again. She remembered that he had.

"What did Tom say?"

"He doesn't know. I thought you deserved to be the first. But there's nothing anyone can do about it, or I would have done it. We've already had so much happen with this show and we have enough _issues_ surrounding it right now and we just couldn't afford any more..."

"No, you mean _you _couldn't afford it. You had to win your pathetic little pissing contest with your husband so badly that you had to rush this to Broadway whether it was ready or not. Oh yes, I know about that. No, you never told us but I'm not an idiot. I can read between the lines." She knew that talking back to a producer like this was a terrible idea, but she didn't care. It wasn't as if she had anything else left to lose, she thought. "That's the way it's been the whole way through. Looking for shortcuts, ignoring or papering over all of the rough edges that are _totally_ _normal_ for a show in this stage of development, full speed ahead, damn the consequences to the show and damn the collateral damage to the people involved. And anything or any one that might slow it down just gets tossed out. Because you had to prove that Jerry wasn't the brains behind the two of you. And you know what's funny? All of this, all of the desperation, it just proves that he was."

"You're upset."

"_Of course_ I'm upset. Why wouldn't I be? I've just managed to sing my way in to a part and then out of a job entirely at the same time. The irony would be amusing if it weren't so heartbreaking. And you still haven't answered the question. How much was it?"

"You're actually welcome to stay in the ensemble. I'm sorry I didn't make that clear. It's just the principal roles that are an issue for the insurance."

"Stop deflecting," Ivy said, "and just answer the damn question. How much was it?" She didn't know why it had suddenly become so important for her to get an actual number, why she found herself with a perverse need to know exactly how little she was really worth. But regardless of why, it had just become her new obsession. She knew that if got the answer, she'd start obsessing over that number instead. And she knew that it would continue to be so despite also knowing just how unhealthy and demoralizing it was to obsess over this. But she needed to know.

"A lot. Too much. Six figures. More than we can handle given everything that's going on."

"What if...what if those issues were to go away? Or if I could come up with the money?" She was reaching now, desperately trying to find some bit of hope to cling to, no matter how futilely, and she knew it. There was little she could do to make any of the problems with the production go away. Apart from vague rumors and the obvious fact that they needed to recast DiMaggio and do some more polishing, she didn't even know what they were. And she certainly did not have a few hundred thousand dollars of spare change lying around.

Eileen had to have known it too, but she evidently thought it was better to leave Ivy at least this last little bit of possibility. "Then the insurance wouldn't be a problem any more. And Ivy? I really am sorry and I truly do hope to see you again on Monday."

**A/N: **Evidently, writing self-deprecating, tongue-in-cheek requests for reviews at the ends of your chapters are totally an effective way of getting them :). Who knew? Anyways, I'm completely appreciate all of you who left one. Thanks a bunch.


	10. Chapter 10

She didn't bother trying to hold back the tears this time. That would have been a futile effort, and besides, she thought, she was more than entitled to them.

When she finished, she didn't know for how long she had stood there weeping. Just that it had been a long time.

She reached for her bag, searching for something to wipe away the tears and reapply her makeup when she saw two objects that grabbed her attention.

On the right was the little orange pill bottle, exactly where she had placed it at the beginning of the week. It was hard to believe, but she had almost forgotten that she had left them there over the past few days. There were a few moments when she'd wanted them, but they had been fleeting. But then, she had never been set up for heartbreak quite like this since, well, since the last time she'd taken a few of the .

On the left was her phone. The little light indicating that she had a message was on. She remembered that she'd promised to meet up with her friends later. They must have started texting and calling when she hadn't shown up.

She could take the phone and call her friends back, saying she'd meet them at the bar. She could quite clearly use a shot - or a fifth - of vodka. And when combined with the warm, boozy afterglow of inebriation, the sympathy she'd be sure to receive would be soothing, gratifying, and reinvigorating.

Or she could take the pills. They'd take a while to kick in, but she had a bottle of whiskey in the cabinet back at home, and that could bridge the gap in the mean time. And when they did take effect, the artificial euphoria they provided would make everything seem perfectly fine.

She thought about taking the pills and heading to the bar briefly, but the logistics of the situation just didn't add up. Not like in Boston. Even putting in a token appearance at the bar would lead to questions about why she was leaving so early, questions that would delay her from getting back to the apartment on time. And she was in no mood to encounter anyone in the business while she was still under the influence. As it turned out, she still had something to lose, however meager it may have seemed.

No, it was one or the other. Drinks at the bar or pills back at her place.

So which was it going to be, she wondered, booze or pills?

Booze or pills?

She let out a sigh and picked up the phone.

* * *

It was odd, she briefly thought, that almost nobody would find it anything less than completely and totally understandable that she was sitting here in a bar pouring what looked and felt like half of the GDP of Russia down her throat, but if anyone thought that she'd taken the pills again, the whispers about her being "unstable" and "uncastable, not even for the chorus" would stop being whispers and become a settled consensus. But she quickly moved on from pondering the comparative morality and perception of the various forms of self-medication to amusing herself by watching her friends' indignation on her behalf. It _was _terrible and unfair and cruel, they had unanimously agreed.

And then she heard someone, she couldn't be sure who, suggest that she try and see if she knew anyone who might be able to lend her the money to cover the extra insurance payment.

Now there was an idea. Who did she know that could help her out?

Tom might be able to. He'd almost certainly at least promise to try and chip in. Sure, "never lend money to your friends" was a cliche for a reason, but she knew that she'd pay him back as soon as she could, and so did he. And lots of people helped pay for their kids to go to school and this was sort of the same thing, she thought, an investment in her future. And sure, she was biased, but dammit, she was still a pretty good investment.

But then, even if he would, he might not have the cash. Tom's money was tied up in his place, and sure, _Heaven on Earth _was a hit now but there was no guarantee that it would last much longer. There was never any guarantee that any show would last. And there was no guarantee _Bombshell_, or any other show, would be a success. His future income was uncertain and would always be uncertain.

But while she was on the subject of parents investing in their kids, there was always her actual parents. Leigh had retired a while ago, but Daddy was still working. He was a partner at a small boutique investment firm, although she had no idea what he actually did. She had heard words like "private equity," "mezzanine capital," "leveraged buyout," and "secondary markets" being tossed around while she was growing up, but they had always gone over her head, never managing to catch her interest. But regardless of precisely how the money was made, her family did not lack for cash. They had enough to cover the insurance.

Or at least, they probably did. Although the big house in Greenwich wasn't close to being paid off, and then there was that dealership that Jimmy had convinced Daddy to invest in. Evidently, her big brother hadn't realized that opening a series of luxury car dealerships in the wake of a financial crisis and the resulting recession and then expanding in the midst of the Occupy movement and the ensuing governmental and regulatory pushback against Wall Street and the affluent was _not _a sound business strategy, not even in the tony suburbs of Westchester County, New York and Fairfield County, Connecticut. Now he was in danger of losing the business and with it, a hefty chunk of Daddy's cash. Well, she thought, there was a reason why he was now taking evening classes and getting his MBA. Clearly, business school still had plenty to teach him.

"What, like my family?" she asked aloud. "Clearly you don't know them very well."

Bobby, replied with "No we don't. You've never told us about them. We had to find out _Leigh Conroy _was your mother when she showed up at the workshop."

"And we still don't know anything about your dad," added Dennis.

"He works on Wall Street. Well, not actually on Wall Street, but he's in Wall Street, except he's in Connecticut. Wait, that doesn't make sense either. I mean, he's a Wall Streeter in Connecticut? Yeah, that works. Okay, I've had too much to drink but you know what I mean. He's based in Connecticut, but he's in finance. His firm has an office downtown and he visits the city on business about every other week. He hasn't been to see me once this year."

And despite all that, she thought, he was still about ten times as supportive as Leigh had ever been. Sure, Jimmy had always been the favorite and sure, Daddy had always been busy, but when he _was _there, he always had a kind word for her. That was something Leigh could never say.

"But there's also your mom," Jessica said cheerfully, attempting to fill the awkward silence that had resulted from Ivy's description of her father and accidentally stumbling on to an even more awkward subject. "I mean, she's _Leigh Conroy_. That must have been a real experience growing up with her. Remember when she sang to you at the workshop?"

"She wasn't singing to me," Ivy said, disgustedly. The excited way that her friends were saying her mother's name, the way that none of them had picked up on her discontent with that subject, either now or back in the workshop, was making her feel particularly unwanted and worthless. "She was singing _at _me. There's a difference. I can't remember her _ever _singing to me, actually. I've never been anything more to her than just another prop in the Leigh Conroy show."

"We're sorry," Jessica said meekly.

"In our defense, she _did _win a Tony," added Bobby.

"It's so heartwarming to know that our friendship can be so easily sidetracked by some shiny awards," snipped Ivy.

"_What h_e_ means _is that the Tony proves that she's one hell of an actress," replied Jessica, slapping Bobby on the shoulder, "and we were taken in by the act. Come on, give us a break here, we're sorry. How about we buy you another drink?"

"Make it a double and we'll see."

**A/N: **Again, thanks for reading/reviewing.

Guest - I'm glad you decided to start reading this and that you like it so far! And thank you for your comments. I don't think I've portrayed anyone as thinking that Karen is untalented, and if it's coming across that way then I'm not writing it clearly enough. Here's what I was going for: I don't think experience is solely about "paying your dues" and "waiting your turn." That's part of it, yes, but that's not all of it. So what I was trying to do was portray how Karen's inexperience presents her with more substantive drawbacks beyond just "being new and naive" and that those disadvantages do show up in rehearsal. In the last chapter, it wasn't that Karen couldn't handle the song vocally, but that she was having trouble getting all the nuances of the number and taking the right tone in her interpretation to make it fit in with everything else. It's not that she doesn't have the chops so much as she just can't pick things up as quickly and requires a bit more direction, even if she usually does get it right in the end. Similarly, in the chapter before that, it takes Ivy three tries to put in her new moves while Karen requires the entire day plus some extra help, and Ivy directly credits her many years in the chorus for helping her figure out how to fix things. Ivy's taking a less charitable interpretation of things and focusing on the negatives because she still thinks she deserved the part (and in many ways, she does) and there's still some resentment there. She might have been getting better, but it is a process and it's only been about a week. But I don't think she thinks of Karen as talentless either.


	11. Chapter 11

Ivy sat on the train as it pulled in to the station at Rye. She had booked a gig singing at a wedding this evening out here in the suburbs, and unlike her last gig that she'd given to Jessica, she had found herself sadly all too available tonight. As she waited for the train to come to a complete stop, she wondered whether instead of going back to the city when she was finished, she should instead go the extra two stops down the line into Greenwich and visit her family.

She had decided that she would, in fact, be asking her parents for help with the insurance payment. It wouldn't be the same as trading off her name, she told herself. After all, she'd earned the expanded part herself before, well, before other _outside considerations_ had forced her out of it. It would only be fair if she used her own outside resources to even things up a bit.

That was assuming her parents would be willing to help, of course. Which, somewhat surprisingly, Ivy didn't doubt that they would be. The asking would be painful, yes, and it meant that she would have to endure the sheer misery of a conversation about her stalled career with her mother, a torture magnified by Leigh's singular talent for coming up with the perfectly cutting comment that would somehow completely penetrate all of her emotional defenses and strike her where it hurt the most. And what made it worse was that it would be a seemingly innocuous comment as well, one filled with so much superficial concern that Ivy would start to wonder whether there was something wrong with herself for letting it bother her, and the guilt and uncertainty that resulted would only compound the pain.

Still, as excruciating as all of that would be, it was also probably why Leigh would end up helping her out after all. Leigh would never pass up a chance to play the heroine here and rescue her from this mess, to show once again just how helpless and insignificant Ivy Lynn was next to the magnanimous greatness that was Leigh Conroy, and more importantly, to remind Ivy and anyone else of precisely that fact. But, Ivy thought, all of the passive-aggressive remarks and demoralizing commentary would be a small price to pay in exchange for making it possible to finally move on from the chorus. And she didn't _have _to go to Greenwich tonight, she could just call, and that would make it a little easier. Besides, as she always told herself every time she spoke with Leigh, how could she possibly think that she was a good enough actress to carry a Broadway show if she couldn't even put on a convincing display of filial affection for a conversation with her mother?

But she could worry about all of that later. For right now, she had a gig to worry about, and thinking about the wedding tonight would be a welcome distraction for her. She had always liked working weddings - everyone was always so happy and filled with hope and plans for the future and the good cheer couldn't help but become infectious. And of course, there was always plenty of free booze. She hadn't asked, but the bride's father had told her she was more than welcome to partake when she was on her break.

This wedding was heavy on the standard songs that were always played at these events: "At Last" for the new couple's first dance, "My Girl" for when the bride danced with her father, "Unchained Melody" and "'Til There Was You," with "All You Need Is Love" and "The Time of My Life" as a change of pace. Then, because the bride was something of a fan of the theater, Ivy went into a selection of show tunes.

She ended this set with a ballad from _Three on a Match_, a number that would always have a special place in her heart. _Three on a Match _had been Tom and Julia's first show ten years ago and it had been one of Ivy's first auditions, as well as where she had first met Tom. She had gone out for the part of the female lead, knowing that she was so new that she almost certainly would not get it, but filled with enough dreams and ambition to go for it anyways. She had made it to a series of extensive callbacks, where she ended up going against an established and experienced actress.

Tom had later told Ivy that he had wanted to cast her, that there was just something about her that he had seen, but in the end, she was so completely unknown and their producer had demanded that they cast her competition, who while not a huge star, had nonetheless already established herself as a lead actress on Broadway. Tom had personally called Ivy to give her the bad news and offer her a spot in the ensemble, only to show up at her doorstep the next day, profoundly embarrassed and apologizing profusely, to rescind that offer. Ivy had invited him in anyways, and over the next four hours, in between bonding over their shared passion for the theater, Tom had told her that their new lead had, through her manager, insisted that Ivy be booted, and the producer had acceded to the demand. And while Julia had managed to get Karen hired for _Bombshell_, Tom had not yet possessed the clout to get Ivy brought on board for _Three on a Match_.

In theater, as in so much of life, timing was so often everything.

Ivy had reacted with equanimity back then, encouraged that she had made such an impression on the composer and confident that her next audition would be the one that would be her breakthrough, the one that would win her a part. Ten years later, it still had yet to happen. It would have been nice for it to have been Marilyn and not just because it was such a juicy part, not just because Marilyn was such an icon, not just because it was with Tom and Julia, but also because it would make a nice conclusion to this chapter of her story for it all to come full circle like that.

Perhaps, Ivy thought, this was why Karen had such a remarkable ability to get under her skin. It wasn't just that Iowa had everything simply handed to her, but also that she was getting every single break that Ivy's younger self had not, despite being no less worthy. Karen wasn't just the girl who had taken away Marilyn, but the walking, talking, breathing embodiment of unfulfilled possibilities and what could have been for Ivy.

She finished the song. It was one that always brought out bittersweet memories for Ivy, but the bitter was vastly outweighed by the sweet; true, the piece may have represented lost opportunities, but it also marked the beginning of a wonderful friendship. When she finished, she noticed that her eyes had moistened and knew that those weren't performance tears, but genuine ones.

Her set finished, she excused herself and headed to the bar for a drink. She knew that she could definitely use one right now.

* * *

She recognized the man standing beside the bar immediately. She hesitated for only a second before walking towards him; they had parted on good terms, after all.

"Well, if it isn't Arthur Miller," she said, smiling.

"Nice to see you too, Marilyn Monroe. You were great up there, by the way."

The compliment failed to register with her. Instead, she cringed reflexively at being called Marilyn. She tried to hide it, however, with a joke.

"Are you saying you want to marry me? Because I think we might be moving a little fast here."

She thought that she'd been successful. But he must have noticed anyways, because he apologized before he continued with the banter. "Look, I'm sorry about that. I should have known it would still be a sore spot for you."

"It's okay. I'm fine."

"Also, I'm not Arthur Miller," he said with a smile.

She didn't bother trying to hide the bitterness in her response this time. "And I'm not Marilyn."

"I'm really sor-"

"Don't worry about it. I really am fine. It's just, I don't know, you just seem to have a talent for catching me when I'm at my worst."

He paused for a moment that seemed like an hour, as if deciding what to say.

"That's how you make it in this town," he said brightly. Too brightly, as if he were trying too hard to lighten the mood and cheer her up with a lousy joke. Which he definitely was. "Buy low and sell high."

"Now _that's_ the way to make a girl feel special. Tell her that you think she's a commodity," she said with a short chuckle.

He dropped the joking as his tone turned serious.

"Well, what I wanted to say was that if this is you at your worst, I can only imagine what you'd be like at your best. And how I bet it'd be a real treat to find out for real. But I figured that you'd think that was a really cheesy line."

"Yeah, you _really _should have gone with your first instincts on that one," was her dry response.

"Clearly."

"But nice save."

"Thanks. I try."

"So what are you doing here?"

"Shh, don't tell anyone, but I'm crashing this wedding. If anyone asks though, tell them I'm with the band."

She laughed. "There's no band here, just my accompanist. Oh, and the bride's cousin who's an amateur DJ. So really, you'd be here with me."

He grinned. "I know. That's the idea."

She returned it. "Oh wow. Very smooth. You're getting a lot better at this."

"I'm glad that it hasn't gone unnoticed. I decided not to overthink things this time."

"Good call. Want to get me a drink?"

"I'd like to, but aren't you on the clock or something?"

"Like I said, the bride's cousin likes playing DJ, so I get a bit of a break now. And free drinks are one of the perks of the job. I go back on later to close out the night. I'll have a vodka tonic, by the way."

He got the drinks, tipped the bartender, and handed hers over, saying "Mike and I went to school together, by the way."

"What?" she asked, confused by the apparent non sequitir.

"Answering your question from before," he replied. "For real this time. I'm friends with the groom, that's what I'm doing here."

"Where?"

"Where what?"

"Where'd you go to school with the groom?"

"Penn. What about you?"

"I did a semester and a half at Tisch, then I got cast for _Chicago_ and left to do Broadway full time. I've been bouncing around in various ensembles ever since," she said, noticing that she had said it with a wistful air that she hadn't fully intended. She took a long swallow from her drink.

He didn't comment on her tone though, even though he almost certainly had noticed it. "That's impressive, getting cast so early, right?" he asked instead.

"It is," she said with a small smile.

He laughed. "No false modesty there. I like that."

"I mean, it's not unheard of or anything," she elaborated, "but it isn't all that common either. The getting cast so early part, at least. The bouncing around part, not so much." She finished her drink.

"I was at NYU too. It's a big school in a big city though, and Tisch is probably very different from the law school, so..."

"Yeah."

"Want to dance?" he asked.

She gave him a smirk in response. "Sure you can keep up? I am a professional at this, after all."

"Yeah, but I can hold my liquor better. That's what I'm counting on, at least."

As it turned out, he wasn't bad, she decided. He had placed his hand on her waist and immediately began determinedly steering her to the far end of the dance floor, firmly establishing that while she might have been the professional, his part was the lead and he was going to do it justice. Yet, he was mostly following her footsteps, letting her set the tempo and establish the rhythm, and generally deferring to her greater expertise. Confident and assertive, while still knowing his limitations and without being too full of himself.

"So how have you been?" he asked, navigating her into a crowd, letting her show off her intricate footwork.

"Up and down. Very up and very down. You know, I actually got to be Marilyn again after the last time we met. Well, sort of, at least."

"Really? Awesome."

"Yeah, it was, for like two seconds, until they fired me again."

"Ouch. That sucks. Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. It's just, I don't know, it just gets tiring always being the bridesmaid, you know?"

"Yeah. But I'm sure the right guy's out there somewhere. Maybe closer than you think."

"Unless some other girl's got her hands on him instead."

"Then maybe he's not the right guy after all. I think. I'm not sure, I'm just making this up as I go along," he said laughing. "I don't know. I'm not sure how to make that last bit actually fit with the rest of the analogy."

"I was just about to ask," she said dryly, "you do realize this is only a metaphor, right?"

"Yeah, I think so. And by 'guy' we both really mean 'part?' But yeah, all that subtext was really starting to become, well, text there," he replied.

She laughed. "Clever."

"Glad you appreciated it. I think I heard it somewhere and decided I liked it."

The music changed, and now something fast and bouncy was playing. She saw him cock his head and noticed a twinkle in his eyes. She returned his look and gave him a mischievous smile and a small nod. Then, he suddenly pulled her in while stepping out to the side. She decided to go with basic but flashy, adding in a series of simple kicks and pirouettes as she twirled towards him.

"You're right," he said with a smile, "I can't keep up."

"Don't worry about it," she said, giving him a smile of her own. "Just keep doing what you're doing, but really commit to it. Half of dancing well is about putting energy and feeling into it and being able to get that across."

"What's the other half?"

"A combination of having rhythm and putting in lots and lots of practice to get the steps down."

When they finished, she looked and told him that she had to go. She was up to perform again.

"Hey, when you're done and this is all over, you want to share a cab back to the city?" he asked.

"Absolutely."


	12. Chapter 12

Henry surprised her the next morning.

"Want to grab something to eat?" he had casually offered. "Or brunch maybe?"

She had then surprised herself even more, twice. First, by agreeing so readily, and second, by not just accepting his offer of breakfast but by replying that "brunch sounds lovely."

Breakfast, after all, could mean anything from a bowl of cereal from his pantry or a quick run to grab something from the case at Duane Reade all the way up to his whipping up some eggs and toast for the two of them. And the implications of breakfast could be nothing more than his being polite and her being hungry. But brunch was different. From the way he had offered it so easily and comfortably, she knew this wasn't the usual, awkward post one-night stand morning-after meal. He had given her that choice if she wanted, a polite way to clarify that this was only a fun, casual hookup that had happened again only by pure luck, by offering her the choice between breakfast and brunch.

And she had chosen brunch.

Brunch was something more elaborate. It meant going out to get something to eat, sitting down at a table and waiting for food to be brought to them and conversing in the mean time. It meant talking to him while sober and in the daytime and with no expectation of sex afterwards, having a real conversation, and if it wasn't _exactly _a date, it was, well, _something_, some sort of escalation for the two of them. To what, exactly, she still wasn't sure; she obviously wasn't about to call this a real relationship at this point. But the expectations had changed. They had both signaled, quite clearly, that they would like to see more of each other in the future.

They got in a cab heading west before turning north about halfway across the island. She hadn't paid attention to where he had told the driver to go, but she recognized where they were now.

"You're taking me to Norma's, aren't you?" she asked with an amused half-smile.

"Yes I am," he deadpanned. "And then maybe we'll split a frozen hot chocolate from Serendipity 3 for dessert. Come on, do I look like a tourist?"

She giggled in response.

"Hey, I _like _Serendipity's. But no, no you don't. Are you from the city originally?"

"Alright, alright," he said good-naturedly. "Fine. Cupcakes from Magnolia, then. And I'm from Astoria."

"The next Williamsburg," she added.

"I think they've been saying that since before Williamsburg became Williamsburg," he said. "What about you? Are you from the city?"

"Yeah. I grew up on the Upper West Side, then we moved to the suburbs and lived in Greenwich. The rest of the family's still up there in Connecticut, but I'm in Hell's Kitchen now."

"It's by the theaters," he noted. She nodded.

The cab stopped and they got out.

He led her in to a small bistro.

"The food's just decent here," he said. "I mean, bacon always tastes good and they get their fish from some place good, so that's what I'd go with, but really, we're here because they make one hell of a bloody mary."

"Well, I'm glad to see that you have your priorities in order," she said dryly.

"Always."

The drinks arrived, and the bloody marys were, in fact, rather good. Very spicy and quite stiff, just the way she liked them. "I think I'm going to see if I can get one to go," she said. "I might need it. I have to call my mother after this."

"Oh?" he said, inviting her to elaborate and showing his interest, but not pressing for answers. It made her want to give them. If she could only find a graceful way to phrase them, that is, one that didn't scare him away.

"My mother and I...well...um..." She paused to take a breath. "Let's just say that my mom and I have a...um...well...my mother is...well...she's Leigh Conroy?"

"Is she a serial killer or something?"

She couldn't stop laughing at that one. It was all she could do to avoid coughing her drink up all over the table, but she was too excited to have found someone who wouldn't have cared that she was Leigh Conroy's daughter, who had no idea who Leigh Conroy was, in whose presence she would never have to listen to stories of Leigh Conroy's greatness, to worry about being embarrassed.

"I mean, I don't care if she is, but you were just so hesitant..."

"No, no, she's not a serial killer," she said. The only thing she murders is my confidence, she thought to herself. Aloud she said, "Leigh Conroy was an actress like me. Except she was, or is, kind of a big deal. So basically the complete opposite of me."

"And you don't enjoy calling her because she makes you feel like you don't measure up?"

"Something like that. Except I have to because, well, it's a long story."

He nodded and quirked his head in curiosity, but didn't press the subject, which she found to be a relief. She wasn't sure what she would have said if he'd asked for the story. In any event, he looked as if he had what was probably a pretty good guess about it.

She sipped again at her drink. The conversation then turned to lighter subjects, falling again in to the easy, bantery small talk that they had so enjoyed before as they finished their meal.

This time, when they parted, they exchanged both phone numbers and kisses.

* * *

Ivy poured herself a large glass of wine before picking up the phone. She was certain that she'd be drinking enough during this little talk that anything stronger would leave her far too incoherent to actually carry on a conversation. But she guiltily remembered that she was about to ask her mother for something that was, in any objective view, an enormous favor and tried to conjure up some warmth towards Leigh, some happy mother-daughter moments that would fortify her through what she was certain would be a stressful phone call. She could remember her very first moments in the theater, times when her five-year-old self had lingered backstage while Leigh was performing, serving as the unofficial show mascot while being babysat by the stage managers and simply babied by whatever cast members weren't busy at the moment. Then there were the impromptu voice lessons that Leigh had given to seven-year-old Ivy, and if it wasn't exactly pride, or even approval, that Ivy had seen in her mother's eyes once it was clear that she had real talent, well, it was still _some _sort of satisfaction and that was worth, well, _something_, even if she couldn't decide exactly what. And her mother _was _the one who first introduced her to the theater, and that had to count for something too.

The happy memories would grow fewer and further between as Ivy grew older and more insistent that she wanted to be on Broadway and follow her mother's path, even more so when she decided that while she still wanted to make her living on stage, she decidedly did not want to follow in Leigh's footsteps. But whatever tension that might exist now, it could never make those early joys disappear. Not entirely, at least. As she reached for her phone to dial her mother, she caught a glance of her reflection in her wineglass and found, somewhat to her surprise, that the reminiscing had put a smile on her face.

Leigh picked up on the second ring.

"Ivy! How wonderful to hear from you. How are you on this fine day?"

Leigh sounded both sincere and enthusiastic. A bit too enthusiastic, in fact, and that was the key to penetrating through this veneer of concern. It had only been a little more than a week since Boston and the last time they had spoken. There was no reason for Leigh to be this effusive, particularly when she had taken up Ivy's suggestion to just go home to Greenwich upon finding out that her daughter wasn't to be the star after all.

"I'm great, mother. The past week has just been, well, it's been all such a rush."

Ivy's reply was also delivered with seeming sincerity, but she intentionally added a slightly syrupy quality to her voice as she spoke, another small nuance signaling her true thoughts.

Conversations with her mother were often a veritable master class in acting, she realized. The layers of meaning that were laden in everything they said to each other, the apparent sincerity with which they said it, and that one little thing that was always just a little bit off, that tiny dissonant piece that gave the lie to that sincerity and the superficial warmth - all of that combined to create a conversation within the conversation, something that would be imperceptible to a casual observer. But to actors as skilled as each knew the other to be, all of this was what mattered. It wasn't the text - their actual words - or even the subtext - the unstated implications behind their words - but the metatext, the very process of creating and then stripping away all of the layers of artifice in each of their statements, that carried the actual substance of the conversation.

"I imagine it would be, there's often so much to be added and worked on so soon after previews."

Now that was interesting, Ivy thought. Leigh had used the same tone she always used whenever she was telling stories about her own career, so the little implied reminder of her past glories and by extension Ivy's lack of such was definitely intentional. On the other hand, she still hadn't said it out loud, and that still meant something. Particularly because she usually would have, and added an anecdote or two to elaborate on the point. Was this an attempt at a small olive branch?

Ivy decided to test it out.

"I know! It was so exciting, they even had me getting some lines and a couple of songs!"

She said it with restrained earnestness. The key wasn't the enthusiasm that she put in her voice, but her attempt to hide that enthusiasm that she wanted Leigh to see through. That would be the part that sold it to her mother. She expected to be patronized in response, something about what a great first step that would be, or maybe something about not getting her hopes up.

"See, I knew that you'd get a chance. You come from good stock, after all."

Another surprise. This one was also said with far too much enthusiasm, but it was so _obviously __false_, Ivy thought, as opposed to the more subtle facades of enthusiasm that they both had been using, that she thought that there was at least a little bit of actual sincerity in Leigh's response. And then there was the reference to her bloodlines. Yes, they lurked beneath the surface of every conversation they had about the theater and Ivy's career, but Leigh never mentioned them this blatantly. Her barbs were always far more precise. Which meant, that by acknowledging them and bringing them up, Leigh was actually trying to minimize them?

Maybe. But not likely. Ivy shook her head and took a long drink from her glass. She was probably just reaching for a reason to be pleased, and besides, her mother was still talking.

"And I always knew that that Derek was a smart director..."

And possibly the most interesting bit of all. Leigh knew that Ivy had a relationship with Derek during the workshop, and didn't seem to know about its end when she went to Boston. So was this supposed to be an oblique casting couch reference? If so, it had both missed its mark wildly and penetrated more deeply than it had ever been intended to, both at the same time. But it had also reminded Ivy of Derek's silent recognition of her talent, of how they _had _reworked so much of the show to expand her part and of how, really, impressing Derek enough to make him do that was really as remarkable an accomplishment in its own way as winning Marilyn would have been.

She finished the glass of wine and poured herself another. With her confidence rising, she changed the subject to the reason she was calling.

Silence resulted. She had dropped the smokescreens completely, avoided dancing around the fact that she needed help and the reasons why, and that in itself had thrown Leigh. Candor was so rare between them that even it seemed like a ploy. Ivy supposed that maybe it was one, that laying bare her desperation would arouse whatever maternal feelings existed in Leigh, or at the very least, play to Leigh's desire to shine and be Ivy's savior.

She finally got an answer, a definite "maybe." But with the way Leigh had adopted a long-suffering tone in her voice and then went on and on about how insecure their finances were, how so much money was tied up in helping Jimmy, Ivy got the impression that the answer was actually "yes," but that her mother was determined to heighten the tension and keep her in suspense, to make it all the more dramatic when Leigh came through after all and rescued Ivy in the end. She already knew about Jimmy, after all; mentioning this again served no purpose other than to make Ivy feel badly. And besides, there was the casual way that Leigh had simply taken it as a given that helping Jimmy would get priority, the way she assumed that Ivy would accept that as well. There had never been any doubt that her brother was the favorite of both her parents, but if there was, it would have ended right there.

Then the guilt hit. She knew that she was asking a lot. She didn't think of herself as entitled, hated the idea that she hadn't earned everything that she'd gotten, and here she was expecting her parents to spend a good deal of money to help her clean up her mess. Not just that, but expecting the money to be just given, without any questions, without any strings, and without any grattitude from herself.

But then again, Leigh probably knew that Ivy would respond this way. And it was definitely not beyond her mother to seek to provoke exactly this reaction.

On and on it went. Smokescreens camouflaging pretenses lurking behind yet more falsities. Insecurity that fed resentment that fed guilt. A vicious cycle of misery and self-doubt.

Ivy finished her wine and refilled her glass again. This had definitely been a three glass conversation.

She shook her head again and took another drink. She had gotten this far without her mother's help, she told herself, conveniently ignoring the question of just where exactly "this far" was. The only thing she could do was to keep going, and if Leigh came through to make the "rescue," then she could take it as a pleasant surprise and accept it with grace, she insisted. She couldn't worry about it now.

Besides, she didn't have time for that. She had an audition tomorrow.


	13. Chapter 13

She had chosen to audition for _Sex and the City _with "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend." Surprisingly, it wasn't because of her familiarity with the piece thanks to Marilyn, but because she thought that its joyous, designer-label-name-dropping celebration of materialism and the life of a single girl happy with her lot but nevertheless hoping for more combined to make it the perfect song to audition for this particular show. She had spent time meticulously preparing and developing her own take on the song. She had chosen not to imitate Marilyn, but took care to avoid simply rejecting that iconic version out of hand and doing the opposite, instead putting thought and consideration into her every interpretive choice. The result was something that was less breathy and more brassy than Marilyn's version, less kittenish and more jaded, emphasizing the eminently pragmatic lyrics of the song, but with an occasional undercurrent of idealism and a hint of actual romance thrown in. It was, she thought, just the right thing for an audition to play a shoe-loving sex columnist with a history of bad relationships who was nonetheless holding out hope for the one.

The casting director had given her his full attention during the song, with eyes rapt and his hand furiously scribbling notes on a pad. And when it came time to do line readings, Ivy had little trouble placing herself in the (expensive, designer) shoes of a woman craving acceptance and reassurance from her notoriously commitment-phobic and womanizing big-shot sometime boyfriend. She had little trouble picking up the choreography in the dance auditions. Near the end, she had cautiously added a series of little flourishes that she thought meshed with both the song and the rest of the choreography, small enough that they could be explained away easily enough if the choreographer decided to object but significant enough to demonstrate her understanding of what they were working on.

She couldn't remember an audition that had gone smoother. Not even for Marilyn, when she had known Tom and Julia and had the music down cold; she had been overcome with nerves then, needing to run to the restroom and throw up to settle her nervous stomach, which then had given her voice a slightly raspy quality that she had feared would end up costing her the role. But she had been weighed down by expectation and desperation back then. This audition had felt more like a lottery ticket. And so far, she thought, a winning one. It took all of her self-control not to allow herself to daydream about the prize. And then...

"Tell me about _Heaven on Earth_."

The producer had interrupted her reverie with the question. It was a more than fair one, she knew, even if she was less than thrilled at having to answer it. But she made sure to keep her composure as she began talking. Poise, after all, was something they looked for in a potential lead.

"I was on prednisone because I'd lost my voice for a little while. You all know what that is and what its side effects are. Well, I'm sensitive to prednisone, I didn't know just how sensitive until what happened happened. That's an explanation, not an excuse. I should have known, been more careful, and made better choices but I made a big mistake instead. I've learned from it, and I'm just so grateful for the chances I'm still getting."

A mixture of two parts truth, three parts hyperbole, a healthy dose of careful omission, and a dash of half-truth in that answer. She hid her nerves for the most part, but also let enough of it show to help sell her sincerity. And it wasn't completely an act; she did feel truly contrite.

The producer smiled and nodded.

"Tell me about Marilyn. Or _Bombshell_, is it?"

That question she hadn't been expecting.

"It's _Bombshell_," she said, stalling for time. "And it's, in a word, just fabulous. Tom and Julia, you know them, of course, Tom Levitt and Julia Houston, they're just amazing..."

"Right, we've heard good things too, especially about the latest preview performance..."

Ivy nodded and hoped nobody could see how strained her smile had just become.

"Didn't you play Marilyn in the workshop?"

She took another breath to think. She hadn't quite prepared for this question either.

"I did and it was, well, it was a dream come true."

So far so good, and completely true.

"And, you know, I've worked with Tom and Julia before and they're incredible, but just working with them and being there from the beginning, seeing what goes on and what goes in to creating that wonderful music and being able to be the first to really perform it, that's something I wouldn't trade for anything."

Again, true. But now she was treading into dicier territory.

"Being replaced, it was, well, it was disappointing and heartbreaking and a million other things..."

Still true. She paused to take a breath.

"...a million other things, but it's also showed me what it takes to be a lead and that I'm ready for it. I'm ready for this role right here and for everything that comes with it. And Marilyn showed me that, helped prepare me for that."

And turning it back to the reason why she was here, and then rounding it off with the usual platitudes, even if she didn't fully mean it.

"So, when I think about Marilyn and everything that happened, yeah, I'd be lying if I said that it didn't sometimes still hurt..."

Understatement of the century there.

"...but despite all that, I realize what a privilege it was to have worked on it, and I remember what an experience it was and everything that I learned and that's why when I think about it, I know that the good outweighed the bad."

Was that true? She wasn't sure herself, but some part of her must have believed that it was, because she found that her voice had said it with more conviction than her mind was aware of or that she thought her heart had felt. Maybe it was, after all, or perhaps she had finally succeeded in fooling herself in to thinking that it was. Either, she thought, would be a good thing.

She smiled again.

When she finished talking, she didn't know if she had gotten the part. She didn't know if she had nailed the audition. But she was certain that she had just given the performance of her life.

* * *

**A/N: **A significantly shorter chapter than usual this time, but if you're still reading this, well, for one, you have my gratitude and appreciation, but also you may have noticed that I normally like to put two or three scenes that I think go together well in one chapter. And I didn't have any scenes that I wanted to put with this one, at least not among the next three or four that I had planned. So this scene gets to stand alone.

Incidentally, and perhaps surprisingly, I'm actually not an SATC fan. I've only seen the first movie and a couple of episodes here and there, but with all of the other properties that were being/have been adapted into musicals and that I thought were less conducive to becoming musicals, I figured that sooner or later someone would try and make a musical of it. Also, like I said, I haven't seen that much of it, but I'm friends with enough people who have and are big fans to be familiar enough with it for the purposes of this. I think so, at least. It's not a crossover or anything so I'm only including a few details mostly for purposes of verisimilitude.

Ella - I hope it's not! I honestly don't know myself if they end up together in the end or not, I don't have everything written out, just general ideas, but I like him and I was a bit worried about giving him too much space here, but I'm glad that you guys seem to like him too and thinks he works with Ivy. If they do end up together though, there's clearly still a long way to go at this stage.

Amy - Duane Reade is sort of like a cross between CVS and Starbucks and a 7-11, if that makes any sense. They're drugstores that are only in New York, but they also sell food, from frozen/prepared foods to things like fruit cups and sushi and pastries and sandwiches and shrimp cocktails (!) and salads. And yeah, I guess I probably did go a little overboard when I was naming all the places to eat. I'm glad you liked the rest though!


	14. Chapter 14

Her phone rang shortly after she exited the audition. She didn't recognize either the voice or the number at all, and whoever it was had declined to introduce himself. It was someone connected to the business, though, from the questions he was asking. Probably a writer, maybe a blogger of some sort. They were weird questions, though, all about the early recording sessions she'd done with Tom and Julia and whether she had worked with them before and how they normally worked, with an odd focus on the specifics of what seemed to her to be completely arbitrary details. She shrugged. She wasn't particularly in the mood for reliving the early stages of _Bombshell_'s development, those halcyon days when it seemed like things were finally coming together for her, but she figured that if she answered the questions then maybe she'd get a good write-up and that could only help her career, and whatever quirky fascination this guy had with those particular details seemed like it was really none of her business. But first, she had one question of her own.

"I'm sorry, excuse me, but who is this?"

"It's me, Ellis."

"Ellis? How'd you get my number?"

"It was on one of the files when I worked for Eileen and I remembered it. Why? Is this creepy?"

"Yeah," she said. "A little bit."

"Sorry then, but I just really needed to ask these questions. When you were doing the initial recording sessions for the show, when, you know, Tom and Julia were first writing it, did Julia seem nervous or just, you know, off to you?"

"I guess," she said. Now that she thought about it, Ivy remembered that Julia _had _seemed somewhat distracted that day. "A little bit. Maybe."

"And was she really discussing the songs with you or was it mostly Tom?"

"Mostly Tom," she answered, wondering where this was going. "Why?"

"I figured she would be," he said. "Maybe she was nervous about taking all of my ideas."

"Wait. What?"

"You heard me. The show was really my idea, it wouldn't be there without me. I can prove it, too. I have this notebook I've been keeping notes in, it's got everything in it and..."

"Bullshit. You're forgetting that I've worked with them before, I know how they write."

"You don't owe them your loyalty, Ivy. After everything that's happened to you, they don't deserve it. Anyways, Tom had nothing to do with it, he was nothing but classy to me, it was all _her_."

Now there was an interesting pitch, she thought. Loyalty had always been one of her virtues, but not if it wasn't returned. And here she was, being invited to give free rein to all of the resentment and bitterness that she knew she still carried within her, being given a chance to dress it in the costume of fairness and justice and of returning something to its rightful owner. Not only that, but her friend would even be spared. And she supposed there would be some other, more tangible benefit for her at the end as well.

"And you do?" she asked.

"I never said I did," he answered. "Because I'm not asking for it."

"So why..."

"Why call you? Because you know the truth."

"Yes," she said pointedly, "I do."

He must have misread her answer, or more likely, chosen to deliberately ignore it. "I know you do, and that's what I'm counting on. I always felt like _Bombshell_ was kind of, you know, my show, and I cared about it a little more because of it, and I think that's why I always wanted you to be Marilyn. I wanted the show to be the best it could be, so that's why I wanted you."

Despite herself, she had to admit that she was flattered to hear that. She was pretty sure he was lying, but for an instant, she didn't particularly care. But only for an instant.

"That's great," she said, "but what do you want?"

"I want you to help me get my show back. And then I want you to be Marilyn once I do."

"A word of advice," she said, not bothering to hide her disdain, "if you want to try and buy someone off with a part, you should probably make sure you can offer something a little better than a role in whatever bare-bones off-off-off-off-Broadway production that you could actually manage to put together playing in whatever tiny, dingy 50-seat theater you can find and that you probably won't even get to put on anyways."

"You shouldn't underestimate me," he said. "Too many people do. The ideas are good. The show's good and people still love Marilyn. I'm going to get control of the show, and when I do, people will want to bring it to Broadway. People want to bring it to Broadway now, they're just waiting to see what happens with me. I have backers and I'm going to win, and then we'll bring it to Broadway, with you or without you."

It was tempting to think about, she had to admit. But she didn't think for even a second that anything Ellis had said was actually true, and even if the kid could actually pull it off, she knew that no matter how much she committed herself to this story, she would only be playing a part. True, she was an actress, but her audience for this little performance would be her own conscience and she had never been any good at fooling herself. Besides, she told herself, she was moving on.

"Sorry."

"I just thought you'd understand what it's like to want something, to be counted out, and to fight for it anyways, to know that you'll do anything for it. That's all."

"You realize that when most people say they'll do anything, that it isn't a literal expression, right? But I do understand what that's like. And I'd do _just about_ anything. But I don't stab my friends in the back. Sorry, I'm not helping you."

"You already have. You've told me what I needed to hear. That, plus the notebook, and I've got what I need."

Her mouth puckered in horror upon hearing that and then opened to respond, but the call ended before she could..

It couldn't be true, she told herself. He had just been fishing, and he had started flailing wildly when he didn't get the answer he wanted. Nothing he said could possibly be true. A musical was a risky enough investment as it was, nobody was going to be stupid enough to think that investing in an attempt to take over someone else's musical could possibly be a good business plan.

She went to rehearsal.

* * *

Rehearsal began abruptly, Derek walking in with Eileen and announcing that they would be working on "Watch Me/Watch Her," the new number that they had added last Friday. It was to be the last number before the intermission, closing out Act I with Marilyn at the apex of her stardom, looking down from her peak and reflecting on her life thus far, before the long descent began in Act II.

"Places," Derek called out. Ivy stood, confused.

"Are you waiting for something, Ms. Lynn?"

Surely he couldn't expect her to continue playing the new part she'd just had taken away in rehearsal, could he? He could, she quickly realized. She knew him well enough to know that he would. Her friends in the ensemble that she had told - Sam, Jessica, Bobby, Dennis - all looked horrified at the thought. Tom and Julia looked at each other, confused, and Ivy realized that she hadn't told Tom about this latest disappointment yet.

She heard Derek's voice again. "Well?"

She could break down and scream at Derek for being so cruel, she thought. And it would serve him right. But it would also serve no real purpose. She had foolishly raged at Eileen on Friday upon being given the news, and she was lucky not to lose what she still had as a result.

Professional, she told herself, taking a breath. Be a professional. A professional who's moving on instead of wallowing.

She bit her lip, focusing on the pain in her mouth to distract her attention from any other pain she felt.

She could feel the lump growing in her throat as she ran through the scene and her part approached, could hear her voice threatening to break as she began to sing but she added more power to it to compensate.

Professional, she told herself again as she finished. Just because she was no longer going to have the part didn't mean that they weren't still going to add the changes, that they were just going to waste the day. She should have known better than to expect anything else.

He was a professional.

And so was she.

As she finished her song, let out a deep sigh, and gave her friends a wan smile, she noted with a sense of accomplishment that her cheeks were dry. It was a small achievement, she realized, nothing like answering those questions from earlier in the morning at her audition. But it was another step forward.

Break was announced shortly afterwards and one by one her friends stopped by. Sam had given her a concerned "are you okay?" and a promise to talk later, as had Tom. Most of the others gave her small pats on the shoulder and "good jobs," while Jessica had come for a session of giggly, gossipy girl talk. Tom and Sam, she realized, were the type of friends who would talk through these sorts of things with her and give her their kindness and support, while Jessica was the type of friend who would try to take her mind off these things with smiles and laughter.

She needed both types, she decided.

They traded the obligatory "how was your weekend" and other small talk, and soon Jessica was babbling on about how she had spent her Saturday night. It was actually a fairly typical non-working weekend for Jessica, Ivy decided, lots of time spent in Brooklyn or the East Village at hipster bars and trendy clubs and warehouse parties, with Bobby alternating between playing the gay best friend and helping her attract guys or pretending to be interested in her and helping repel them. With lots of dancing, lively and unstructured and intense, thrown in. Ivy listened, nodding and laughing in the right places. She had tagged along with them before on occasion, often having fun, but that had never _quite_ been her scene. She made a face and her ears perked up when she caught Karen's name though..

"You brought _her_ along?"

"Oh yeah," Jessica said, blithely unaware of the slight scowl that was developing on Ivy's face, "I forgot to tell you. She's crashing on my couch for a little while, she finally ended things with her boyfriend."

"She's been in the city for how long, and _you're_ the one she calls looking for a place to stay? I mean, you're awesome and everything, but come on, you've known her for _how_ long? She doesn't have anyone else?"

"She's got some people she knows from waitressing, a bunch of Dev's friends, and now us," Jessica continued, not yet picking up on the undercurrent of hostility in Ivy's voice, "I think if I said no she was going to go call Der- oh God, I'm so sorry, I should..."

"It's fine," Ivy said flatly.

"Anyways, yeah, so that's probably why. And come on, she's nice."

"Nice," Ivy scoffed. "Yeah, she's nice, in that insipidly sweet, soulless sort of way. Her personality's like a Snickers bar. It's tasty enough and all that, and sure, it's nice and sugary and everything, but really, it's all just empty calories."

Jessica giggled at that, despite trying not to, but only for a little bit.

"People like Snickers bars," she pointed out, "and empty calories or not, sugary sweet still tastes better than sour and bitter."

"True," Ivy conceded.

"So yeah, try and be nice and all that," Jessica said quickly before abruptly transitioning back to bubbly and bouncy. "Anyways, how was _your _weekend? You were playing that wedding out in the suburbs, weren't you?"

"It was great. You'll never guess who I saw..."

"Oooh," Jessica squealed, "I love this game. Jake? He's from Westchester, right?"

"Nope. Well, he is, I think, but it wasn't him."

"Luke? No, you hate Luke...Carrie? No, she's out on the national tour right now, and it's not a girl anyways. It sounds like someone you spent the night with."

"Are you just going to go through the list of everybody that I've ever been in a show with that you know about?"

"Come on, give me a hint, do I know him?"

"You've met him," Ivy said coyly.

"So I don't know him, but I've met him. Hmm...what's-his-name from when we did _Legally Blonde_, you totally had a crush on him back then..."

"Matt? Oh no, I got over that one a _long _time ago."

"Oh, I got it. It's lawyer cutie from last week..."

"Took you long enough," Ivy smirked.

"So come on, let's get some details."

"Oh, he was nice. We shared drinks and a cab ride back to the city. Oh, and he took me to brunch the next morning. Then I had to call my mom."

"Seriously? That's all you're going to share after stringing me along for that long? But ooh, brunch!"

"Yep," Ivy said. "And oh yeah, I had my _Sex and the City _audition this morning. And guess who called me after that?"

"How'd it go? And I'm not playing this game again..."

"It went good, I think. I don't know, it was weird at the end. We'll find out if they call me. And excuse me, but you were the one who said you _loved _the guessing game. Anyways, it was Ellis."

"Good luck," Jessica replied, "And I _did_ love the game back before you decided to suddenly go all CIA with the details once I finished guessing. And Ellis?"

"Tom's assistant?" Ivy said.

"Oh, him," Jessica replied. "He could be cute if he would just fix that weird hair. I mean, is that a jheri curl? Really? And I didn't know he was even into girls."

"He says he's straight. And ew, no," Ivy responded, making a face. "That's not what he called me about at all. Yuck. No, he wanted me to, well, it's a long story."

She told it quickly, though, and got no response at first from her suddenly serious friend.

"Have you called your agent?" she finally said.

"Chris? Yeah, I'll do that. I don't know, he's been a little hard to reach lately, for, well, you probably know why. He'll probably just tell me to do nothing and hope it blows over."

"It probably will, though," Jessica said helpfully.

"I know. I'm just worried, though, you know? Maybe I did say something that..."

"Hey, if you're really worried about what you said and your agent won't talk to you," Jessica said lightly, "you could always call lawyer boy, he might know something about what happens or what that kid can do with what he has or whatever..."

"Yeah, but he'll think I'm crazy and psycho and clingy if I call him today."

"Maybe, but if you really want to know... he works for one of those real fancy places, doesn't he?"

"He does, and I know, and I do. I kinda liked him, though."

"Maybe he's just a rebound."

"Maybe. Probably."

"He probably is," Jessica said. The door opened and the creative team re-entered the studio. "Anyways, I think we're starting up again..."

**A/N: **Carla - I didn't, I'd left New York by then, but it's nice to hear that she did great and that you enjoyed it and are enjoying the story. And yeah, I think that it's a difficult thing to do to manage the tension between wanting to put some distance between your own interpretation of something and an iconic interpretation, and not wanting to just go for the knee-jerk reaction and reject the iconic version, which I find to be just as unoriginal as simply copying the best-known version. So I think it takes a tremendous amount of talent to be able to find just the right balance between the two extremes and create something that's instantly recognizable and yet recognizably your own.


	15. Chapter 15

She called her agent during lunch. As she expected, it went straight to voice mail. Chris had been politely ignoring her since just before the workshop, she had realized. Just another person who didn't believe in her, she thought frustratedly. She'd have tried to switch, but then, that would require finding an agent that _did _believe in her. Maybe Tom would give her a name, she mused.

In the mean time, she decided to make another call. She wanted to know about that conversation from the morning. She called Henry.

"So, I'm really sorry for calling you at work and you prob..." she started.

"Ivy?" he said tentatively.

"Oh, yeah," she said, realizing that she had neglected to say who she was. She could wonder about what it meant that he had recognized her voice, later. Probably nothing more than that he had called ID. "Sorry about that, yeah, it's Ivy, and sorry for calling you at work and all that and you're probably going to think that I'm totally crazy for doing this and calling you but..."

"Well," he said playfully, "if that's what you're going to lead with, then yeah, I probably will."

"I just didn't want you to think that this is, like, I don't know, me leaving my scarf at your place 'accidentally' or whatever."

"Well, if you did, it's gone by now, I've thrown it away. My place is a scarf-free zone. I don't believe in them."

"Okay then," she said, "so _you're _the crazy one in this conversation. Got it."

"Yeah, I actually have this totally irrational fear of things around my neck strangling me to death," he deadpanned. "I mean, it's basically a phobia. So yeah, no scarves for me."

She giggled.

"Hey, stop laughing at me like I'm crazy. This has actually happened before," he said in mock indignation. "That's how Isadora Duncan, who..."

"I know about Isadora Duncan," she said. "I'm a dancer, remember?"

"Yeah, I figured you would."

"And yet, you wear a tie to work every day. Around your neck."

"Yes, I'm aware of the irony," he said dryly. "I pay very close attention to my ties when I'm tying them. And I almost never let anyone tie one for me. I let an old girlfriend help out once. It was like we were moving in together, and it never happened again."

"Okay," she said, laughing despite herself, "you're showing me that you're paranoid, neurotic, and have commitment issues all while you're telling me about your ex. Now you're just trying to scare me away, aren't you?"

She could almost hear him smirk through the telephone when he replied. "Maybe," he had said, "but you haven't hung up yet, have you? Admit it, you're having fun."

She decided that she was. It was a ridiculous little conversation, but the ease of these ridiculous little conversations they had and just _why _they were ridiculous, well, that meant something, she thought.

"Maybe," she said.

"You are. And I'm glad I didn't make you run away. Because I _really_ don't want to have to start chasing you."

"I thought men liked the chase."

"We do. But sometimes we just can't wait to get our hands on the prize. It happens sometimes when the prize is special enough."

"Awww, that's sweet. I think."

"I'm glad you think so."

"The chase builds character, though."

"Yeah, I know. Delayed gratification and all that. But that's a lot less fun."

"Anyways, maybe I just had some questions I wanted to ask a good lawyer."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"If you're serious, you know you should probably find another lawyer, right?"

"Yeah, I know, you're not allowed to sleep with your clients. Don't worry..."

He chuckled. "That's actually not an issue, believe it or not. You're allowed to keep sleeping with clients if you were sleeping with them before they became clients. It's not that. But go ahead, fire away."

She gave him a nervous laugh in return. "I'm not sure how I should react to you knowing _exactly _what the rules about sleeping with your clients are."

"Maybe it just means that I'm good at my job."

"Sure it does. Anyways, here goes."

She told him about the morning's conversation. She could hear the "rights" and the "uh-huhs" from his end of the conversation, but he said nothing for the longest time once she finished.

"You're serious? Like, this is a real question and everything?"

"Yeah."

"Okay then." Another long pause. "This seems, um, rather messy and unusual, but we'll get to that later. For starters, you don't have to worry about what you t_o_ld him, that's hearsay and it's not admissible in court. There are about thirty different hearsay exceptions, but I don't think it fits any of them. By the way, if you were a real client, that would have just cost you a hundred bucks, and then I'd have a junior associate write me a memo telling me all about the different hearsay exceptions and which ones might fit here, which would cost 500 bucks an hour and probbly take him a couple of hours, all to answer a question that I'm pretty sure I know the answer to already, just to be sure. And that's just one tiny aspect of all this."

"That's...um, intense."

"Yeah, well, we don't do things halfway. Anyways, the notebook. Okay, so I don't do IP, so this isn't my area, but even I know that you can't sue somebody just for plagiarism, it would technically be for copyright infringement. You don't need to register a copyright to have one, but you do need to register it if you want to sue somebody for violating it, and the registration is evidence that it really belongs to you that I don't think is going to get trumped by a notebook. Then there are various types of fraud that you might try and..."

It all went over her head. "What? Just give me a conclusion."

"Bottom line? Kid seems desperate, your producer seems just as desperate."

"Okay, that doesn't actually answer my question, but she's definitely desperate," Ivy said. She could go on for days about that desperation and how it had affected her. She started rambling. "Eileen, that's her name, she just split from her husband-and-business-partner, she was the one who found the right projects and the right talent and brought them together to take to Broadway, but he was the one who handled most of the logistics and the business end. So she wants to prove that she can handle this solo so she's rushing this to Broadway ridiculously fast, I don't know why exactly, I mean if it's a hit, it's a hit and she'll have proven herself just as well but no, she's got to one-up Jerry, that's her ex, for ego or whatever because he's got this show in development too and..."

"Okay, hold up," he said, stopping her. "I don't think it's just about ego. Look, you said she's going through a divorce, right?"

"Yeah."

"So I don't do divorces either, but I know that all the money they made while they were married would be in escrow right now while they fight over how to split it. The court isn't just going to cut it in half like they do in, say, California, but when they do finish dividing it, it's probably still going to be fairly even. And my guess is, he came to the marriage with a lot more money than she did, so really, she'd be the winner. But right now, all of that's in escrow so she can't touch it. Neither can he, but like I said, he probably came to the marriage with more money so he doesn't need it as much as she does. So the longer this goes on, the more pressure she's under and the more leverage he has. He's trying to force her to sign a settlement that favors him just to get her hands on some of the money right now. But if she can get that show up and running and making money, well, now she's got her own source of income and all of his leverage disappears so she can get everything she's entitled to and she doesn't have to sign a settlement that's bad for her."

"Oh, I hadn't thought of that."

"And now you know. Anyways, if this goes all the way, the kid and your producer probably both lose. He's got nothing, really, but she can't afford any more problems or rumors or expense, so she needs to get rid of him, quickly. So it's all just a giant game of chicken. Smart play here is they come up with something that throws the kid a bone and gives him a way out, but still carries enough of a stick to make him go away for good. But either way, you've got nothing on your conscience when it comes to this one."

"Well, that's good to know. Thanks."

"You're welcome. Oh, by the way, you want to see a ball game tomorrow night?"

"What?"

"I was going to wine and dine some people at the game, it's a business development thing with a couple of in-house guys I know and trying to turn them into future clients, but they canceled, so I've got two pairs of Mets tickets, right behind home plate, and..."

She grinned broadly. She wasn't much of a baseball fan, but she had a best friend who was, and watching Tom try and fail miserably to fake enthusiasm through a full nine innings would more than entertain her even if the game didn't.

"Four tickets, huh? So it's a double date. I know just the couple to bring along."

"See you then."

* * *

Derek had announced that they would be working on "National Pastime" and "Wolf" in the afternoon session. The first song would remain Ivy's, or rather, her replacements; it was such an over-the-top, sexy number, and besides, DiMaggio had famously first seen a photograph of Marilyn with a pair of baseball players and decided from that to ask her out. While their relationship and the desire for some privacy in their personal lives would develop later, Joe, like millions of men around the world, had first fallen for the public Marilyn. So it simply made sense for "Pastime" to belong to The Bombshell.

The Bombshell. It was what the company had taken to calling this part, and lately, Derek had begun to adopt that nomenclature as well. It would likely be what whoever ended up replacing her would be credited for. So it was a title role that she had lost. Ivy remembered how Tom had told her last week (was it only a week ago?) that the bombshell had always had a place in his vision for the show and smiled sadly. He had finally fully gotten his way on an aspect of the show, and it still wasn't doing her any good. Still, she had to focus. Derek was calling for another run.

Then they did "Wolf." If she were being honest with herself, Ivy could begrudgingly see what Derek had meant when he had said Karen "had something" that she didn't. She had heard it described as "innocence," but it wasn't quite that. Marilyn wasn't _that _innocent; used and controlled by others for their own purposes, yes, but she was never the doe-eyed naif that Iowa was. Nor was it "vulnerability." The idea of someone as broken in so many was as Ivy not being able to portray vulnerability was just laughable. "Confidence," maybe, but it was more complex than that. It was that blithe self-assurance that Ivy found so infuriating but that freed Karen to simply perform in the moment, to go with her instincts and to just feel the material. Despite that, and no matter what Derek thought, Ivy still believed that her own impromptu performance all the way back at Lyle's party had been superior to what Karen was putting on right now. It wasn't just about bringing the sex appeal, Ivy thought. It was also something else, a vivaciousness and a sense of joy, a certain sparkle, that Iowa, for all of that confidence and feel, wasn't putting into this piece.

But then, she thought, from a dramatic standpoint, that actually made some sense, something she hadn't realized until today while they were working on "Pastime" and "Wolf" back to back. Marilyn's USO tour in Korea had been a spontaneous detour from her honeymoon with DiMaggio. Karen's so-called purity added an undercurrent of restraint that, when layered on top of the suggestive lyrics of "Wolf," made for a nice tension that contrasted with the exuberant sexuality that was in "Pastime."

Not just that, but Marilyn had actually gone alone to Korea as Joe had previously scheduled business to attend to in Japan. She would later describe it as one of her great triumphs, but playing in front of hundreds of thousands of leering servicemen was something that almost cerainly did not sit well with the notoriously possessive DiMaggio. With a few changes, changes that fit better with Karen's version, the number could serve as a subtle foreshadowing of the tumultuous end of the marriage.

She could understand Derek's vision for the number and begrudgingly see why he might prefer Karen for it. Not that she agreed, of course. Had she been directing, she would have foreshadowed the relationship troubles by continuing to play up the sexuality but adding a darker subtext to it all, emphasizing the predatory nature of the 'wolf.' Marilyn's joy would carry through and contrast with both that and with Joe's discontent. As for the Joe-Marilyn relationship, she'd rely on the previous and the following scenes to sell that. And anyways, she thought, if that was what Derek had wanted, maybe he should have just said so and given her some notes instead of continuing to play mind games.

But she wasn't the director and pretending that she was wasn't any more productive than continuing to dwell on her failures, she thought. She pushed this out of her mind too and focused, once again, on the next run-through.

* * *

Rehearsal ended and she noticed that she had a message on her phone. She recognized the number as the producers of _Sex and the City: The Musical_. She quickly walked to the bathroom and called her voicemail. She wanted some paper towels nearby to wipe away any tears that might come.

She didn't get much further than "Congratulations, Ms. Lynn," though, before squealing in excitement and joy. She played it again, two, three times, just to hear the magic words again. On the fourth time, she finally bothered to listen to the details of the message, that she had been cast as Carrie for the workshop, that they were planning to open on Broadway with that very cast, that opening was scheduled for next March at the Palace Theatre with out-of-town tryouts in LA, and that she should call her agent and start negotiating, but that she had a week to get a deal done. The schedule wasn't _quite _as rushed as _Bombshell _but it was close, but here, the speed was out of a desire to start milking something they fully anticipated would be a cash cow as soon as possible. But regardless of the details, it was that long-awaited lead role.

She walked out and once again found Eileen waiting to speak to her, but this time the producer had a small smile on.

"Good news, I presume?"

"The best," Ivy said, before beginning to apologize for what she had said last week. She might be planning to leave soon, but there was no need to burn any bridges here. Eileen cut her off before she could get very far, though.

"You were upset, and I don't blame you for that."

Ivy smiled, grateful.

"Thank you."

"Just try not to make a habit of it. Now, I have a small favor to ask. We're casting the new DiMaggio tomorrow, as you know, so it's a break day for the ensemble. I was hoping you might come and help us?"

"Why can't Karen do it? She's the one who would be playing it with him."

"So would you, we hope."

"What?"

"You get to be the Bombshell, if you want it. It's yours, straight through opening night to whenever we close or whenever you want to leave. I'll have it in writing if you want, but the part's yours. That's a guarantee."

"I just got..."

"I figured that you got another part. I heard you in there, you know, and congratulations. But I just wanted to let you know, you've got one here too."

"The insurance? Was it my mom and dad?"

Visions of telling Leigh Conroy that no thanks, she didn't need the help after all, she had just gotten a lead all by herself, danced in Ivy's mind. But that was assuming she left _Bombshell _after all, which, surprisingly, she found that there was still some question about. She had really liked the idea of playing The Bombshell and already, she knew that she was planning on going to the casting session tomorrow. She would almost certainly end up taking the part of Carrie, she had texted Chris, her agent, to start negotiating but to make sure he got a deal ready to sign before the deadline, but right now, it didn't hurt to consider the possibility of staying, even if it was just to be absolutely sure.

"No, no, it wasn't either."

"Tom, then?" That would be awkward, she thought. She still hadn't discussed this with him yet, but he certainly could have found out by now from Eileen and he definitely cared enough about her to do it. She grimaced, knowing that he would take it as a disappointment to find out that she was leaving. But he'd be proud of her and happy for her, and in any event, he'd be getting his money back.

"Not at first. He didn't even know about it at first. Now he's splitting the tab, though. He absolutely insisted on being allowed to put up some of the money after he found out. But it was Derek. He came up to me before I could tell anyone, don't ask me how he found out, and told me he would be putting up the money for you himself."

"Derek?"

"Yes. Derek."

**A/N: **Isadora Duncan was an influential dancer who basically founded modern dance, but what Henry and Ivy are referring to early in this chapter is her rather unusual death. This was during the 1920s, and she was riding in a car which had large, open wheels. She liked wearing long, flowing scarves and when the car started going forward, the scarf got caught in the spokes of the car's wheels and killed her.

Shanshii - Thanks! I'm fond of Ivy, obviously, but yeah, she can get a bit mopey at times. She needs a good girl friend and sometimes it's just refreshing to write someone a bit more cheerful like Jessica for a while as a change of pace.


	16. Chapter 16

She had texted the good news to her friends and may as well have floated in to the bar to meet them, with how excited she was feeling. To go from never getting a part and on her last legs to now having to decide between two parts was something she had not thought possible.

"I hope you're happy with yourself," she heard someone say to her from behind. British accent, but the voice was a bit too polished to be Derek's It was probably Dev.

Sure enough, she turned around and there he was.

"I am, actually," she chirped. "I've had a pretty good day today."

"You told me you wouldn't tell her."

She _had_ told him that, but she didn't regret breaking her word about it. Sleeping with him had been a mistake, and _that _she regretted. But not telling Karen. The timing of that revelation had been awkward and inconvenient, yes, and sure, her motives had been selfish and ignoble. But she hadn't done it for the part. Not really. It was simpler, more primal, than that. Yes, the possibility that Karen might break down at the news had crossed her mind, but she didn't think of it as a real possibility until after Iowa had already run off. It wasn't why she had shown Karen the ring. In any event, if that were why, it had backfired completely.

No, she had done it just because she had been wounded and wanted to lash out, wanted to hurt Iowa and make her feel the same pain and anger that she was feeling. It was far from her proudest moment, she knew. And she was ashamed of it But it was more complicated and neither as conniving nor as malicious as it seemed at first glance.

Regardless of the why or the when of how it had happened, though, she knew that had she been in Karen's position, she would have preferred to know. No, she _had _been the one being cheated on before, and she _had _preferred to know. It may have been made for the wrong reasons, it may have happened at the wrong time, and it may not have had the right results, but telling Karen had been the right choice.

"Don't you think she deserved to know?" she asked.

"Don't try and pretend that you cared about her or that you decided to tell her out of concern for her," he replied.

"I don't," she said. "And I didn't. But you do and you should have."

"I was waiting for the right time," he said.

She laughed, a small, short, but not unpleasant laugh. "And when was that? Right after you gave her the ring? Or right before the ceremony? Or maybe some time during the honeymoon? Trust me, there is never a good time to tell your fiance that you cheated on them. No, that's just an excuse that people who are putting it off because they think they can get away with it tell themselves."

"Why would I take relationship advice from _you_?" he asked. His accent made the words seem even more snide than they were before. Not that they needed more help.

"I know more about the subject than you might think."

"That wouldn't surprise me," he said. "She's told me about you, you know. You're one of those people who thinks that they can't have nice things, so you have to try and break everyone else's things. You can't have happiness, so you want to take away everyone else's and try to make them as miserable as you are."

"Yes," she said sarcastically. "That's it exactly. My heart is just two sizes too small so I want to steal away your happiness."

A part of that had struck home, though, despite the defensiveness. She knew that the last few months had brought out some of her less pleasant qualities. But even if she could recognize some truth in what he had said,damned if she was going to take that from Dev. Not when he was the one who had still been in a relationship when they had met that night. Not when he had made the first move.

"She knows less about me than you do," she said, her anger rising. "Which is nothing. And just so we're clear, I didn't seduce you. I remember Boston, and I remember how you were the one who started talking to me, you're the one who bought me a drink. I don't remember all of the details, but I do know that. It's not my responsibility to keep you from cheating on her and whatever happens from that is on you. If you're here to get her back, good luck with that, but I'm not going to be the punching bag for your warm-up act."

"You will, however, use horribly mixed metaphors as part of a desperate rationalization of your own behavior."

"Ah, pedantry. The last refuge of a scoundrel."

"Clever, Miss Johnson, but my mistakes are between me and her, I don't need your judgment."

"So go find her and talk to her. Not to me. Because I already had just about all that I could take from you back in Boston."

She turned and left to find her friends.

* * *

The rest of the night passed quickly, happily, and unmemorably. She found herself whirling from one pair of outstretched arms to another, joyfully accepting hugs and offers of free drinks from her friends. Sam had called Tom with the good news while she was making her way there, and he had showed up to celebrate with her. She spied Karen discussing things with Dev, but declined to eavesdrop. She had said her piece to each and was past caring about their relationship by now. There was karaoke at the bar, but she politely but firmly rebuffed any attempts to get her to sing. She wasn't normally superstitious, but she had nevertheless resolved to make sure to do everything differently than she had the first time with Marilyn.

The production and creative teams were already there when she arrived at the casting session the next morning. It wasn't a massive casting call like her own Marilyn audition had been, only a short list of five actors whose agents Eileen had called to have them come read for the part. She looked at a stray schedule lying on the table. There were no big stars, but she recognized all of the names. She knew four of them. She had been in the ensemble of _Les Mis _with Rick, way back when, and Brady currently had a supporting part in _Heaven_. Scott was one of Jessica's friends, they had gone to Northwestern together and Ivy would run into him occasionally at parties or at bars. He had never been in a show with either Jessica or Ivy, though. Manny had been in _Wicked _and _Legally Blonde _with her, but they had never gotten to know each other well. Manny was, like her, an ensemble veteran while the others had gotten some principal roles before. Only Cam, the one she didn't know, had ever been a lead.

Karen gave her a small nod and an understated "congratulations" when she arrived. She returned the nod and mumbled a soft "thanks."

She was needed mostly for the dance auditions; Joe had only two scenes with the Bombshell character and no duets, although one of the scenes was being used for the scene reads. She plodded on through the uneventful day, occasionally chatting with some of the auditioners that she knew, catching up on the gossip from their shows, comparing notes on their mutual friends. Brady and Scott had already knew that she had gotten Carrie and had congratulated her.

Finally, the auditions ended. She was partial to Rick, but she knew her opinion counted for little. Particularly since she was probably leaving the show soon. She had told Tom that she would meet him at the stadium for the baseball game tonight and laughed at the wonderfully dramatic combination of eye-rolling, sighing, and gesticulating before as he said, "I wouldn't miss it. But Ivy, a lawyer _and _a Mets fanatic? Are you trying to find and combine the worst qualities of my current and last boyfriends in your dates?"

She had gone to her bag and was gathering her things when she heard Derek's voice.

"Ivy, a word?"

* * *

She turned around.

"I hear congratulations are in order," he said.

She preened at the sound of those words. She couldn't help it. Despite everything, part of her still craved his approval, still respected his talent and wanted that recognition in return, and, why lie, still hadn't moved far enough past their relationship, to not want to bask in it.

"Thank you," she said, smiling and turning again to leave. "For that, and for the other thing."

But she was stopped by his next glance, a searching look combined with a raised brow that she knew was asking her whether she planned on leaving _Bombshell_.

"I'm not sure," she said, answering the unspoken question. She wasn't, not completely at least. She thought that she probably would, but that wasn't the same thing as being sure.

"You won't," he said. She wondered how he could be so confident while she felt so uncertain. "Not if you're the person that I thought you were. Sit."

Here it is, she thought. The conversation that they probably should have had a long time ago but that she had dreaded and he had let her avoid. But for once, she thought, she was the one who came to the conversation with the advantage. Either because he had been decent enough to let her have that edge before forcing her to have this conversation, or because he hadn't cared enough to want to have this conversation until he found that she might be leaving the show and leaving her part unfilled. But then, even if it were the latter, it said something that he thought she was important enough to the show to try and retain. And if it was that, then he had definitely put his money where his mouth was. Or maybe it was just that...

_Stop_, she told herself. _Just stop_. She couldn't keep overanalyzing every single one of their interactions like this.

"And what type of person is that?" she asked. She remained standing.

"You're fishing for compliments," he said with irritation. "And I'm not going to bite."

"Yes," she said, returning the irritation. "I'm well aware of how difficult it is for you to say nice things to me."

It was ungracious, she knew, after what he had done for her. But that didn't erase the months of grief that had come before. If they were going to have this conversation, then they were going to have it in full.

"I have no problem saying nice things to you when you've earned them."

"True. You did tell me you loved me once. Right before you decided to stand me up to go fuck Rebecca fucking Duvall."

"I never said I loved you."

"You _did_."

"I said, 'that's why I love you.' There's a difference."

"Semantics," she spat. "I'm dating a lawyer now. And even he would find that level of hair-splitting pathetic."

Exaggeration combined with supposition, but she didn't think he would call her out on it.

"It's not hair splitting," he insisted. "It's important. Nuance and subtlety matter, even in the theatre. I don't love you. I never did and I certainly never said that I did. I enjoyed being with you and I hated many things about you and loved many other things about you. Your passion for and knowledge of the theater was one of them and what I thought was your professionalism was another. That's _all _I was saying."

"Oh, that reminds me. When you're all finished with your _other woman_, you don't tell your girlfriend that it's okay because 'she's a professional.' It doesn't make her feel better. At all. It just makes her feel cheap and used, like a whore. And by the way, saying that it's okay because you're a professional too? That doesn't help either. It just makes her feel like an idiot for being stupid enough to start to have feelings for someone who's just admitted that he's nothing more than a gigolo."

He didn't have a good answer ready, but he did respond. "Are you done yet? Just what the hell do you want, Ivy?" he growled.

She wasn't sure exactly what she wanted from him now.

"An apology would be nice. Maybe some form of recognition that I do have feelings and that I hurt and that..."

"Oh come off it," he replied. "You've gotten enough comfort and coddling from everyone else here."

"Coddling?" She had to force the word out, it had made her so angry. "Try compassion. Or kindness. That's what I've gotten these past few days. But not from you. I deserved better than what I got from you before. I deserved..."

"Marilyn? Go ahead, say it. I know you want to," he said, surprising her for a moment. The thought had crossed her mind, but it wasn't what she had actually been planning to say. "Maybe you did. And maybe you didn't. It doesn't matter because deserve has nothing to do with casting. It doesn't matter how hard you've worked or how much experience you have or how much you know or whether you've paid your dues or not. You were wonderful as Marilyn. There are many directors who would have favored your version. But not me. You weren't my Marilyn, and my Marilyn, my vision, _that_ is what they're paying me to put on stage. You're a big girl and you've been in this business long enough. You should have learned and accepted this by now, and if you haven't, then maybe you belong in the chorus."

"If that's what you think, then maybe it's a good thing that I have options," she said.

"Ah, yes. Carrie, is it? Cookie-cutter songs shoehorned in with an anodyne, derivative book. All glitz and glamor, nothing more."

"A bit judgmental, don't you think?"

"People always say that there are no new musicals. But that's not what they really mean. What we do, it's called musical theater for a reason. Both of those words matter. The score and the book have to work together, to flow, to be organic to each other. All those shows where you're taking some band's songs and writing a thin excuse of a plot around it, or trying to force in songs around what was already a complete story, that's not what this is about. You have to synthesize both the stories and the songs, to make them one cohesive whole, to truly unlock the potential of this art."

"There are lots of adaptations that have become fine musicals," she offered weakly.

"Look, that other show? It's going to be a hit. We both know this. And you're going to be the lead. The face of that hit. Your agent's going to tell you to take it, and if he doesn't, you need to fire him and find a new one."

"So you want me to leave _Bombshell_?"

"You're being deliberately obtuse," he said. "Don't."

"You're being an asshole," she retorted. "Stop."

"If you want me to beg and plead and say that I'm sorry and tell you that you're irreplaceable here, if that's what you want from me, then..."

"I never wan..."

"Let me finish. Your choice is actually quite simple. Tom and Julia, for all of my differences with them, have written a show that can be great. And I didn't put in a part for you because I felt sorry for you. I did it because it made the show better. You make the show better. That's why I want you for the part. If you need me to bow and scrape and flatter and cajole, if all of the drama of the past few months has become that important, then fine, go. If you just want to soak in the attention and glory that comes from being a star, if it's just about the teenage girls who will wait for you by the stage door and give you teddy bears and bouquets and tell you that you're gorgeous and brilliant, if the ego boost that comes from being _the _lead is more important than the satisfaction of a good, difficult, complex part, if it's just about the fame and the glamor, then go ahead, leave. But if you want to be part of something great, if you want to do something great, something worthy of your talent, then you know what to do."

She nodded. It was barely a nod, more like an involuntary twitch of the head. She didn't think he noticed. She wasn't even sure what she had meant with it.

"Maybe," she said. "But I still deserve an apology."

**A/N: **Chrissy - Wow, you guys really like the idea of Ivy trying to direct, don't you? It is something that's crossed my mind before, because of the reasons you and others have mentioned, and also as a way of giving her something to herself and recognizing all of her expertise and experience. But I think she's a little too talented to spend all her time backstage. Maybe, in the very, very unlikely event that this thing gets a sequel. In the mean time, thanks for the review and I'm glad that you liked the chapter.

Carla - Thanks! She's getting a bit more to go on in this chapter to help her make her choice.


	17. Chapter 17

"Maybe," she had said, "but I still deserve an apology."

He didn't get a chance to respond before the door opened and Henry walked in. She had told him to pick her up at the rehearsal studio as a way of giving him a brief introduction to the theater community.

"Hi!" she said eagerly, leaving her bag and rushing to greet him.

He looked at her, momentarily confused, but smiled. That made sense, she thought. It wasn't clear what they were yet, but whatever it was, it wasn't the type of couple that would go and leap in to each others' arms. He decided to go with it, though, and returned her greeting and received the embrace quickly before asking if she was ready to leave yet.

"Just a minute," she said, going back to get her things.

Derek watched, amused. "You must be the lawyer," he said with a grin and extending a hand. "Derek Wills."

"Henry Miller," he replied, taking the hand. "Pleasure to meet you."

"Likewise." Derek paused before speaking again.

"So you must be the white knight," he said, "here to rescue her from unpleasant truths and unenjoyable conversations..."

"...and you must be the director. The temperamental, tyrannical genius and _enfant terrible_ of the stage. By the way, we also defeat dark lords. White knights, I mean."

Ivy turned to watch the confrontation, intrigued. Derek hadn't actually meant to insult, she thought, by calling him a white knight. More of a slightly provocative joke than anything else. And Henry wasn't really marking his territory with his response. It was more of an acceptance of the implied challenge to trade bon mots with each other.

"Yes, we really are a right pair of cliches, now aren't we? I see she's told you about my nickname," he asked Henry before turning to her, "And yes, I know what you all call me. I'm not an idiot, you know."

This remark wasn't an attack, she thought, it was more of a probe, designed to elicit more information, both from the way she and Henry responded as well as how they interacted while giving their responses.

"Who says that she has? Knights slay dark lords after all, it's just what we do and that's all I was saying."

"Really? Because usually, it's dragons, or demons, or some other type of monster or beast that you slay, isn't it?"

"Well, we also go wherever we see a fair damsel to champion. Even when she isn't exactly helpless herself."

She scored this round a draw. Henry had seen through the probe but had countered weakly by continuing with this by now painfully strained analogy. On the other hand, he had acknowledged her and paid her a compliment without giving away too much information or even really acknowledging that she had, indeed, told him about Derek's nickname, and then brought it back to the beginning. The analogy had started with her in need of rescue, after all.

"Oh, I _like_ this one," Derek said, turning to her, amused. "He's much better at this than his predecessor."

She cringed as soon as she heard that. She knew exactly where this was heading.

"Really? I'd say you're doing pretty well yourself."

"You thought I was talking about myself? Oh, she must not have told you about..."

"Boys, boys, boys," she interrupted. "You two aren't talking about me, are you?"

Both men laughed in response.

"As if she weren't listening this entire time," remarked Derek. "She rather obviously wanted this little tete-a-tete to occur."

"The only question is whether it was for your benefit," added Henry.

"...or yours," finished Derek.

She smiled, declining to answer. "Let's go," she said to Henry.

"You're not wearing a tie," she noted as they walked out. "You say you wear one every day." He had on a light blue button-up and black dress pants.

"I'm glad you're paying attention. I think? I don't know. But you're right, the office is actually business casual when I don't have to go meet clients or go to a settlement conference or a hearing or court or whatever. And I didn't say I wore a tie every day, you did, and I just went with it. We were joking around and you seemed like you were having fun."

"So what I'm getting here is that you'll just tell me whatever you think I want to hear?"

"That would be your word choice," he said. "MIne would be 'would say whatever to put a smile on your face.'"

She laughed. "See?" he said.

"So are we taking the train or are we cabbing it? Or are you, gasp, going to drive?"

"Taking the 7 train all the way out. Only reason to take a cab out there is to waste money and be obnoxious and sit in traffic."

"I never told you about me and Derek, by the way."

"So how did I know? I guessed. No reason for what just happened to have happened unless you two used to..."

"Got it. Just so you know, I actually didn't tell you to pick me up here to set that up. Even if I was, uh, watching intently. I actually just wanted to, you know, show you a little bit about my world. But sorry about that. And don't worry about your predecessor, he's..."

"I wasn't. And don't worry about it. The whole thing was kind of fun, actually."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. There's still one thing I'm still trying to figure out, though."

"What's that?"

"That last question we had. Whether that whole encounter was more for my benefit or his."

She smiled. "You know," she said, "I think I'm still trying to figure that one out myself."

* * *

"...so how does a kid from Boston end up a Mets fan, anyways?"

"I just wasn't a big baseball guy growing up. Didn't really get into it until I moved to New York and..."

"So in 1986 and..."

"I was 3 in '86."

"I was 7, but 'It gets by Buckner!' was..."

Ivy rolled her eyes. She didn't follow baseball, but she had been having fun until then. The pageantry and the ritual of "going to a ball game" was appealing in occasional doses, and her friends had seemed to like Henry. Sam because he had found a fellow Mets fan who was connected, if only indirectly, to his world and Tom because he would have liked just about anyone that she started seeing after Derek.

She looked at Tom, who she knew would be just as uninterested in the prospect of listening to their dates chronicle their sports fandom as she was. Sure enough, her composer friend had the same idea and had turned towards her, rolling his eyes to meet hers. "Boys," he mouthed in exasperation before sighing dramatically.

She giggled softly in response.

"So when will you be leaving us?" asked Tom.

She shrugged. "I don't know," she admitted. "A part of me doesn't know if I want to."

The top of the 7th inning began and Ivy listened in again.

"...wait, you're a Bruins fan? Oh no. Just no. This cannot stand. That's against the rules." Sam and Henry were still discussing sports, but had moved on from the Mets to a heated argument over whether it was acceptable to cheer for teams from New York and Boston. "I mean, you don't have to cheer the Rangers, you can cheer for a New York team and a hometown team in some other sport, that's okay, it's what makes us New York, we're a big city and people want to move here from out of town. But not _Boston_. That's just..."

"They're still at it?" Tom asked. She nodded. "We'll miss you, of course. If you do go. Which we don't want you to."

"I know. Did you know what Derek told me?" He shook his head. She told him. He looked like he was about to reply, but she didn't notice and kept talking.

"...and that's the thing, it just really didn't sit well with me the way he was just trashing _Sex and the City_,I mean, it's going to be a good show. Maybe it's not going to be as edgy and innovative as _Bombshell_, but it'll be _fun _and that's a big part of what this is about too. Fun. God knows I love the theater, I love the beauty and the artistry and the passion, but sometimes it's just pure entertainment and he's just being so completely dismissive of that. This used to be mass entertainment, and too many people forget that or think that we should just abandon even trying for that. I mean, everyone's heard "One" or "I Feel Pretty" or "Luck Be A Lady" or "Tomorrow" even if they don't know where they're from or haven't seen those shows or even know they're from musicals. Everyone's seen _The Sound of Music_ and _My Fair Lady_. And..."

"Ivy," Tom said, "Steve and Ricky wrote the _Sex and the City _musical and they're my friends, but they'd be the first to admit that they are neither Rodgers and Hammerstein nor Lerner and Loewe."

"No," she laughed, "that would be you and Julia."

"Why thank you," he said, making bowing gestures with his hand. "But you are being far too kind to us, as well as being far too harsh on everyone else in our little community by acting as if we're all a bunch of great big snobs, especially since we've given out Tonys to the likes of Mel Brooks and the South Park guys. And really, how many people have read _Les Miserables _or _Phantom of the Opera_ the novels and those are the two most popular musicals in, like, ever."

"I don't think you're a snob. It's not that, it's just, well, there's nothing wrong with doing a show that, you know, some tourist who doesn't know anything about musical theater can still know, get, and like."

"There isn't. And if you want to be Carrie, then go do it, you have absolutely nothing to apologize for and there's no absolutely need to justify it to me or to Derek or anyone at all. But there's nothing wrong with recognizing that, you know, we're trying to do something here with _Bombshell _that's just a little bit more ambitious than what they're trying to do and that there's nothing wrong with trying to reach for the stars a bit when you're writing something."

"It's just such a surprise seeing you agree with..."

"Derek? I know, I'm as surprised as you are. But we have you in common and..."

"And Marilyn," she added.

"Well, we fight over Marilyn. I see her as..."

"I know. You see the Marilyn from the Andy Warhol print, the glamorous, fabulous cultural icon. He sees the Norma Jean who was shaped and molded by others into being Marilyn but never felt comfortable with that. Julia, by the way, sees the Marilyn from the inspirational quotes you find on Pinterest graphics and on those platitude of the day desk calendars."

"And how do you see Marilyn?"

"Why does it matter? I'm not playing her anymore."

"Humor me."

She paused for a moment to think before saying, "I see her as someone who was all of those things, at the same time that she was none of them. A walking contradiction. Someone who wanted approval, respect, and love who ended up with fame, adoration, and, yes, love, all while remaining unhappy and unsatisfied. The girl who made her name as a dumb blonde who read constantly and married one of America's foremost intellectuals. Someone who spent her life breaking hearts at the same time she was searching for love, someone who left her things to a man who cared so little about her that he ignored all of her wishes after her death. Someone who was lovely, warm, and full of life at the same time she was sad, alone, and used. Someone who died from a drug overdose but who still enjoyed her crazy, miserable, wild roller-coaster-ride of a life along the way."

"And that, right there, is why I think you should stay with us, Ivy. It's not just because I'll miss you. We've only just started exploring the depth that's possible with your character and with Marilyn, and you should be there for that journey. Look, _Sex and the City _will be a great show, I'm going to be there opening night and I know you'll be amazing in it, if that's what you want. But you truly _get_ Marilyn and that has to mean something. Just saying."

* * *

The seventh inning stretch had come and the Mets were still in the game, although they were down 2-1. Henry and Sam had moved on from discussing sports fandom to the Mets' starting pitching, wondering how many years R.A. Dickey had left and whether Johan Santana was truly back, when the music started for "Take Me Out To The Ball Game."

"They should make a musical about baseball," she said, catching everyone's attention.

"They have," Tom and Sam said simultaneously.

"Oh right," she said, wondering how she could have forgotten. "_Damn Yankees_."

"This one," Tom said, pointing to her, "would make a fantastic Lola."

"I would, wouldn't I? And remember boys, whatever Lola wants..." she said with a smirk, quoting the title of the character's signature song.

"Lola gets," all three of the men finished.

"There's another song that lots of people know but nobody realizes comes from a musical," she said.

"Yeah, I thought it was The Kinks that did that one?" asked Henry, as if on cue.

"No, that's just 'Lola' that you're thinking of. The one about the guy and the tranvestite."

"_Oh I'm not the world's most physical guy..._" Tom sang, to the laughs of the others.

"You know what would make a great musical?" said Henry suddenly. "_Doctor Zhivago_."

"What?" she asked, looking at him with surprise

"The movie, came out in the Sixties? Well, it was a book too, but I've never read it, only seen the movie. My dad was a huge fan of David Lean, the guy who directed it, but his other movies, _Lawrence of Arabia _and _Bridge on the River Kwai_ are very much guy movies. Smart, well-made guy movies, but definitely guy movies. So mom was never as cool with spending a whole afternoon watching those as she was with _Doctor Zhivago_, which is very much a love story about a passionate doctor who's also a brilliant poet and musician and his star-crossed love affair with a fiery nurse."

"You know what, I agree," added Tom. "Epic drama set against the backdrop of Revolution. It could be Julia and my _Les Mis_. And our Ivy would be a great Lara. Just promise me one thing, you won't sue me saying you gave me the idea?"

He laughed. "Like with Marilyn?" At Tom's look, he said "Ivy told me about the, um, difficulties you'd been having with that kid."

"Eileen, that's our producer, she said that she'd be taking care of them."

"Here's my card, feel free to give it to her. It's not my area, but I could pass it along to other people who do specialize in that, or help with other matters. Also, don't worry about it. You can't copyright an idea anyways so it's not me you'd have to worry about, it's the author and the people who made the movie."

"Wait, you're seriously going to start working on this?" asked Ivy.

"Well, not really, _Bombshell_'s still our priority and we've got a lot more work to do, but it never hurts to plan ahead or to just start thinking, right? I'd have to talk to Julia about it and it's not like we're going to start working on it anytime soon, but it's just a thought and I think he's on to something here. Come on, think about it, how could we resist taking a shot at finding our very own _Les Mis._.."

* * *

She got out of the train at Times Square and in to a cab with Henry. She gave the driver her address, far closer to the station than Henry's, which was on the east side.

"You were a hit with my friends," she said.

"How big of a hit? Bigger than your show?"

"Which show?"

"I don't know, that's the question, isn't it? It's all up to you."

"I know, and that's the hard part. It's just, I don't know, I want to be the star. I want to see my name up there in lights and on the poster, and I don't think that it makes me shallow or selfish or some kind of hack. And I don't know why this is bothering me so much."

"Why do you want to be a star?"

It seemed like the stupidest question in the world to her, at least at first glance. Wasn't the answer self-evident? _Because_, _well, who wouldn't want to be a star? _she said to herself, silently. But as she opened her mouth, she found that she couldn't quite put her answer in to words.

"I...I...Well...It's not the money or the fame. Well, it's not just that. I mean, sure, those are nice, I'd like all of that too. I'd like to just really be able to take all of that in and enjoy it, I never got the chance the first time I was Marilyn, not really, I always had to look back over my shoulder at, well, never mind, it doesn't matter anymore. But really it's more than just all of the trappings. It's about loving the theater and being able to be something and do something in the theater world, something big and important and worth being and doing. It's about mattering and knowing that you matter. About knowing that you're good at something and being able to show everyone just how good you are. About being able to know that you're responsible for creating something meaningful and interesting and exciting, that you're responsible for bringing entertainment and happiness to other people. About knowing that people can recognize all of that and appreciate it."

"That was beautiful, you know."

"What?"

"That speech. Seriously."

"Really? I wasn't sure, I was just rambling and..."

"Well, yeah, it got a little long in the end, so you lose a few points there on technical merit, but the passion and the emotion and the sincerity behind it, that much was obvious."

She laughed. "What are you, a casting director now?"

"No, no, just a humble member of your audience."

"Well, thanks."

"No problem. And by the way, I'm the last person you should take advice from on this, but if you ask me, just take the part that you like better, the one that feels right to you, and don't worry about the rest. You _do_ matter and you are good, and lots of people know that. Your friends know that and the people you work with know that. And either way you go, audiences are finally going to get a chance to really see that too."

The cab pulled to a stop on Ivy's block.

"Want to come on up?" she asked with a smile. "You didn't think I _really _wanted to see a baseball game, did you?"

**A/N: **Carla - Thanks for continuing to read and review! Yeah, he's laying it on a bit thick there, and I think Ivy recognizes that. But she's getting some more thoughts on the subject in this chapter, and she's still got some time before she has to make a final choice between the two.


	18. Chapter 18

She woke to a bed that was mostly empty, save for a note.

_Ivy _-

_So, I fully realize that leaving the next morning after sex without even bothering to say goodbye is probably the ultimate douchebag cliche, but you were still sleeping and I just didn't want to wake you up. And hey, at least I'm leaving a note so that's got to count for something, right? Anyways, sorry about that, and this is going to sound like the least original excuse ever, but I really do have to get to work now, and besides, you know where I live and you have my number, so there's that. But I also just wanted to say that yesterday was awesome, so thanks for that, and I really liked getting to meet your friends, so thank them for coming too. See you later._

- _Henry_

She looked at the clock. Eight-thirty, late enough that someone with a job that kept more normal hours than hers would have needed to have left already. So he was probably telling the truth. It was at least several times more plausible than some story about a gas leak, after all, and she had believed that. She crumpled the note into a ball and threw it away. She still would have preferred to be wakened for an actual goodbye, she grumbled.

Her phone rang and she picked it up.

"Ivy, baby, how are you?"

Chris, her agent, sounding more excited to speak to her than he had ever been before, now that she was trying to decide between roles in two potential blockbuster hits. The little pet names of endearment that had sounded condescending before still sounded just as fake and still irritated her, but now they annoyed her because of their presumptuousness, their assumption of false intimacy from someone who had never had much time for her before. Chris had been Leigh's agent, and even though she had never told him who her mother was, she strongly suspected that he knew and it was the entire reason why he kept her as a client. She was easily the least prominent of all of his clients.

Still, suspecting and knowing were two different things, and while pride and determination to make it on her own were one thing, practicality was another. She had gotten in to auditions and industry events thanks to dropping his name, and even if she was far too savvy to have ever truly fooled herself into thinking that he didn't know and keep her on as a client because of precisely who she was, plausible deniability was still worth something, was still enough for her. And to his credit, Chris had done his part to play along with the charade, and that too meant something.

"Listen, honey, have you quit your other show yet?"

"I was..."

"Good, don't, not yet."

"Yeah, I know, it makes your job easier if it seems like I might not take it."

"That's my girl. Oh, also, look, there's also one more thing they haven't told you about Carrie. So, you know how Sarah Jessica Parker's getting a co-producer credit on that show?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, look, they want to put a buyout clause in your contract in case she ever wants to..."

"I get the picture. Is that...likely?"

"Hard to say, really. She's still getting some work in Hollywood, but if she hits a dry spell between now and opening, doing Carrie again on Broadway will probably get her some ink. She started off..."

"Yeah, she started off on stage, and then there's her husband. She's not a stranger to all this."

"I mean, I don't _think _it will ever happen but..."

"There's always the chance."

"Don't worry babe, if they do, you're going to get points on the box and a big check. So if nothing else, you've got a golden parachute, and I'm trying to get them to guarantee a role in a future show with them too, but that's not likely. But I think they might agree to make it so that you'd be guaranteed to open as Carrie, plus get a month or so, in exchange for a lower buyout, if that's what you want. I think they figure the whole franchise thing is going to guarantee them a big opening no matter what, and then, six months later if the ticket sales slow, getting Sarah Jessica back as her starmaking role is going to bring in a new round of buzz and sales and..."

"Yeah, I see. Thanks for letting me know."

"I mean, I'll do what I can for you, but..."

Shades of Rebecca Duvall ran through her mind as she contemplated the possibility of losing another part to another movie star deciding to slum it on the stage, but she shrugged it off this time as she opened her mouth to answer.

"...but there are plenty of other girls with dreams and voices that are bigger than their names, who would all jump at the part, would jump through their hoops for the part. And they want me, they like me, maybe they even love me, but they don't need me," she said, finishing the sentence for him.

"I wouldn't have put it quite that way, but..."

"But I'm not wrong."

"No babe, you're not, but that's..."

"I know, that's the way this business works. I've been told that enough times not to know that. Look, can you call Eileen from and see if they'll give me something to stay?"

"You're thinking about..."

"No, I'm not... well, maybe...no..."

She _didn't_ think she was staying with _Bombshell_, but then, she was still going to rehearsal for it today, she hadn't made any plans to separate herself from that show, and the news about how the producers at _Sex and the City _were already trying to set up a way to push her out before they even signed her had left her feeling mostly resigned, with even a tiny bit of relief at no longer having to choose between the parts, a far cry from how losing Marilyn - both times - had left her distraught. It wasn't quite the same, she knew, not when the fear of never getting any part had been such a big part of what had been so crushing about losing Marilyn, but still, she hadn't just been losing a part then, she had been losing _Marilyn_. And Tom was right, that meant something, even if she wasn't sure what exactly.

"...no, I don't think I am. But it doesn't hurt to keep your options open, right?"

* * *

She arrived at rehearsal to a company that was already buzzing about the identity of the new DiMaggio. Rumor had it that it would be Scott, who had supposedly called Jessica with the news, but the man himself had yet to arrive when Ivy did. Talk turned to smiles and pleasant surprise at her continued presence.

"You're still with us?" asked Jessica.

"For a little while, at least. Still haven't decided on that other thing yet."

"How long do you have to decide?"

"End of the week."

Speculation about Ivy's future quickly gave way to excitement over _Bombshell_'s present when the door opened and Scott walked in. Jessica ran to greet her friend with a hug and introduce him to the others, although Bobby and Ivy had already known him through Jessica and one of the other dancers had been in a show with him once. He really did look like DiMaggio, Ivy thought, tall, with the dark, slicked hair and the big nose and the oddly graceful, yet loping gait.

"So is it everything they say it is?" he asked.

"What?"

"_Bombshell_. Come on, you know that y'all are all in what's got to be the juiciest source of gossip in the business right now, right?"

They looked at Bobby, the assumed source of the dirt, but he wasn't giving anything away. "Quid pro quo, new guy, quid pro quo. You share first and then we'll reciprocate," was his only response.

"Okay, shoot."

"So, you and our Jess. How do you know each other?" Ivy heard someone, she couldn't tell who, say.

"College. We went to Northwestern together."

"Boo," the company responded to the mundane question with distaste.

"What I meant was how just well you knew her," said the same guy.

"We're pretty tight."

"No, no, no, what I wanted to..."

"Oh for the love of..." interrupted Dennis. "Why don't you just come out and ask it if you want to know so bad. Here, I'll do it for you. You and Jessica, you two ever hooked up before?"

"No fair," Scott said. "That was three questions. And how do you know I don't like boys?"

"Oh, I don't know if you like boys too, but I know you definitely like girls," said Bobby.

"He says he's bi, but really, I think he's actually a closeted straight guy who needs to just come out already," laughed Jessica. "No, seriously, I've known him for eight years and I've only ever seen him with girls. He's never told me about a guy he thought was hot, he's never picked up or flirted with a guy, he's never dated a guy. He's only done all that with girls."

"Who else thinks they totally did?" asked Bobby.

"Bobby!" a blushing Jessica said, hitting Bobby's shoulder. Turning to Scott, she added "And _IF _we did, a gentleman never kisses and tells..."

"I'm not a gentleman," smirked Scott.

"That's what she said," shouted the men in the chorus as one.

"You're terrible," said Jessica, "just terrible."

"That's what she said too," responded the chorus again.

Ivy laughed, carried away by the exuberance.

"I know," said Jessica. "That's what I just said."

"Like I was saying, I'm not a gentleman...but I don't kiss and tell either. Not unless they really deserve it, and Jess here's a real sweetheart."

"Awww..." said the crowd, again in unison.

"Yeah, they totally did," said Dennis. "That's what this means, the way he keeps avoiding the question, they did and he just wants to play it cool. Well, either that, or he wanted to and tried to but she didn't and shot him down."

"Yeah, well, no points for figuring out which one. Now my turn," said Scott. "So, what's it like, really, working under the Dark Lord?"

"_Well_," started Bobby, "that depends entirely on just what and who you're ask..."

"...it depends entirely on a lot of things," Sam said, cutting off Bobby.

"But mostly it's just exhausting and difficult," finished Dennis.

Ivy mouthed a quick 'thank you' to them, while shooting a glare at Bobby, who, to his credit, managed to look apologetic.

The door opened again, putting a stop to any further questions and answers as the production and creative teams walked in.

"I see you have met our new DiMaggio," said Eileen. "Please welcome Scott Faranda to our company. But first, I have one more announcement to make. Now that we have ourselves a full cast, at least for now and hopefully for good, I am pleased to announce that _Bombshell _will open at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre this November."

* * *

They didn't give Scott much time to ease in to the role, she observed. Of course, if they wanted to open on Broadway in November, this wasn't exactly a surprise, they would have to push the pace in rehearsal a little and hope that the company didn't need the time it normally took to clean a show once it had been learned.

In fact, they started immediately with DiMaggio's big solo, "Lexington and 52nd Street," which was also the opener for the second act. Marilyn had a few upbeat, jaunty bars at the beginning as the curtain rose and the audience settled in to their seats, but the meat of the number belonged entirely to Joe. But they weren't doing it now just to put Scott through his paces, they were installing new elements for Karen and Ivy (or her replacement). It was a small addition, but the choreography would have The Bombshell replacing Marilyn on the street corner about a quarter of the way through the number, as Joe stopped seeing Marilyn, his wife, and began seeing Marilyn, the sex object, fueling the emotions that would drive the rest of the number.

Scott could bring the jealousy, but more than that, he could also bring the pent-up rage that the role needed, Ivy thought. He was clearly new to this part, and there were plenty of tweaks that needed to be made, but he hadn't been cast just because of his physical resemblance. He put enough snarling in the piece, enough anger to go along with the pathos, to let the audience know that while they could understand Joe and his perspective, he was not, in the end, someone who should have held their sympathies, at least not without a great many reservations. Joe had very much loved Marilyn, Ivy thought, but he was by almost any other measure, horrendous as both a husband and a lover. Possessive, controlling, jealous, and misogynistic to go along with charming and romantic and devoted.

That Marilyn and Joe could be so well-matched and yet be so terrible together, that Joe had loved Marilyn so deeply but was so bad at actually loving someone, that Marilyn had continued to lean on Joe even after their divorce, all of that was the tragedy of their story and the perfect, if rather cynical, counterpoint of reality to the grand dreams that so many had of epic, fiery, tumultuous romance. But then again, she thought, the Byronic hero was an archetype for a reason, and it was one that fit DiMaggio to a tee. Joe and Marilyn _hadn't_ worked together, but they had tried, and they had never quite let go of the idea of trying again, what with their occasional public appearances together, the way Joe had rescued her when she had been institutionalized, and the constant rumors of reconciliation and maybe even remarriage. Whether they _should_ have tried again, whether what Marilyn and Joe had was worth all of that, was something that Ivy didn't know. For all of the work and research and study she had put in to Marilyn, and for all of her own heartbreak and disappointment and life experiences, Ivy had no idea what Marilyn would have done.

Nor did she have any idea what she would have done herself had she been in Marilyn's shoes. Not that it mattered anyhow.

She shrugged and concentrated once more on the choreography.

* * *

**A/N: **So the _Dr. Zhivago _musical is totally a real thing that actually exists in the real world, which I had no idea about. So a shout out of appreciation to LizaGirl for knowing about it and telling me all about it.

Shanshii - Thanks!

Amy - Wow, so much to say here. Well, first and foremost, thanks for the very thoughtful, thorough comment. I honestly don't think I'm setting up a triangle here so much as I'm creating possibilities that I might want to explore later. Which sounds like semantics or something of a cop-out, I realize, but still, it's the honest truth about what I'm thinking. And I do think that you're on to something with each of the guys' flaws, as well as about how each of their pieces of advice is an effort to characterize them as much as to help develop Ivy's character. Although I do think you're being a bit harsh on Derek - he _is_ trying to push her buttons and he's doing so intentionally, but I don't think his motives were intended to be quite as Machiavellian as all that.


	19. Chapter 19

Another day, another morning, another rehearsal, and another scene to learn. It all seemed so routine to Ivy, but there was that looming deadline to think about. Chris had called again in the morning, telling her that he had gotten the final offer from _Sex and the City_, which included the guarantee of at least a 6-week run as Carrie on Broadway. Eileen, meanwhile, had agreed to guarantee that Ivy would play The Bombshell for at least a year or until closing. Neither had made her choice any easier.

But in the mean time, she still had rehearsal this morning before she had to decide.

It began with another round of friends asking if she was staying, followed by the same noncommittal answers from herself.

And then, to her surprise, there was Karen. "I hope you stay," said the Iowan.

Ivy tensed, almost reflexively, at the sound of that voice, but she mumbled her thanks and hoped that nobody had noticed her displeasure as she walked off. No such luck, though.

"Still?" Sam had asked, following her.

She sighed, knowing that she should have been past the envy, past the bitterness, past the focusing on Karen, especially now with her own recent achievements. Knowing that on this she was at least a little bit in the wrong, but knowing also that however much she wanted to be and should have been and was trying to be, she still wasn't past it, not completely. And knowing that she was in no mood to discuss the subject.

"Some people just don't mix well, okay? That's us, we're like oil and water. I mean, I think I might have liked it better when she hated me."

"Really?"

"Well no, not really, or probably not, but at least that made sense, you know? That I could get, I know why she would hate me. Like, that makes sense. I can't blame her for hating me. But now, and before, too, she's just so goddamned chipper all the damn time and, I don't know, it gets on my nerves. I guess I just don't trust people like that."

"Okay, this I want to hear. Why?"

"Because bad things happen to everybody and if they never seem to get to you, it's because of one of three things: either you're too naive and not smart enough to know better, too apathetic and just don't care enough, or because you're just faking it. And none of that makes me want to trust you. Nobody should be..."

It sounded cynical, she knew. And it was. But while she could be an idealist, indeed even a bit of a romantic, about the theater - someone who would, without irony or hesitation, state that she loved the theater wholeheartedly - she couldn't help but be a cynic when it came to the world of Broadway and the people in it. She had seen too much of them, both growing up and now, to be anything else.

"Oh come on, what about Jessica? And you know, I try to smile and be nice to everyone. I mean, I don't always pull it off, but I put in the effort to and..."

"First off, you might actually be literally the nicest guy in the world, and Jessica's just such an infectious little ball of sunshine that you just can't hate her. Iowa though, she's nice enough and all that, and it's not even like she's faking it, it's just that it just seems so cheap, you know? It's always 'ooh, I love that guy!' here or 'oh, I love church!' there and it's just on and on and on, just an endless string of banalities followed by another set of inanities for a change of pace. It's not like she's nice because she cares about people, it's like she's nice because she just literally doesn't know any better. Like, she's just nice by default and not out of any conscious choice, so it shouldn't really count as much. I mean, it's like she sees cartoon bluebirds and woodland creatures following her around everywhere and..."

"Ives. Hold up. Stop and listen to yourself. Did you _really _just compare her to Snow White?"

She paused and reflected. "Wow. That would make me, what, the evil queen?"

"Hey, you said it girl, not me," he chuckled.

She didn't laugh, and his reply had only gotten her started again. "No I didn't, actually, I said she thinks of herself as Snow White. There's a difference, a big one. And sure, she's nice, but she's just so goddamned smug with her niceness, like she thinks she's better than everyone, like, not just better but she also thinks she's a better person, and that's the reason why she's nice. And it's just so damned condescending, especially with what she just said and..."

"I don't think she was trying to be condescending," Sam said.

"That just makes it worse. Because if someone's trying to be condescending, then you can tell yourself that, you know, they're just trying to be mean, that you really aren't inferior. But if they aren't trying to be condescending and they still are, well, that means that they really, truly are convinced that you're beneath them and that's what makes it..."

"She can hear you, you know" interrupted Jessica, who was walking by. "At least, I'm pretty sure she can. I mean, I heard most of it and I was over there."

Ivy nodded and winced. She didn't regret saying it and she meant the words, but she didn't particularly relish a confrontation now.

"I think you're overthinking this," Sam told her.

"Maybe," she admitted. "I tend to do that a lot, don't I?"

* * *

"Karen! Ivy!" barked Derek as the session began again. "Both of you. This is a new scene and probably _the _climactic scene of the show. And there _should _be a song to go along with this, which I am told should be finished by Monday?" He glared at Tom and Julia. Tom looked as if he were about to argue but closed his mouth almost as quickly as he opened it, while Julia simply nodded. It was all quite amusing, Ivy thought.

"Good. Now we spend all of the second act, if not the entire show, building to this moment. So I need you both to understand just what this means..."

Ivy knew without listening what he was saying. _Bombshell_ was both a deconstruction of Marilyn the icon and a biography of Marilyn the woman, exploring the creation and rise of one and the life and times of the other, a show dependent on and driven forward by the tension between the two. So this scene, the first true confrontation between Marilyn the person and Marilyn the bombshell, was critical.

It came about three quarters of the way through, shortly after Marilyn's divorce from Arthur Miller and during Marilyn's stay at the psychiatric hospital, preceded by a new song, a duet between Arthur and Marilyn entitled "The Misfits" after not only the by-now hostile couple, but the rocky and often-delayed production that would be the last one Marilyn completed.

"Places," Derek ordered. "And begin."

"You're nothing," Ivy said contemptuously. "There isn't a man alive who wouldn't give anything for a night with me, but there hasn't been one yet who could stand living life with you. I'm the one they all want, and I'm the one that all women want to be. Especially you."

Karen looked appropriately distraught. "Nurse! I need..."

Ivy didn't relent.

"You need lots of things, don't you? But that's because you can't handle this, any of this, and you know you can't. How could you possibly expect to? That's why you're here, because you just showed up one day as Norma Jean and changed your hair and changed your name and let them change who you are and did what they said and you thought you would get everything you ever wanted because of that and they would always take care of you and you would always be happy. But it turned out, you didn't know anything about the world you were entering, and now you can't take it, can you?"

"Wha-what are... who..."

"Who am I? Oh, but you know that already, don't you. I'm Marilyn Monroe. The real one. The one you wish you could live up to. The one that's not just a silly little girl that nobody wants or respects."

"No...no, no _I _am Marilyn Monroe."

"No you're not. How could you be? What man could ever be as miserable as your last husband was while being married to Marilyn Monroe? As miserable as all of your husbands were? How could Marilyn Monroe not know just what she means and who she is? No, you're not Marilyn. You're Norma Jean the Artichoke Queen, and you'll never by anything more."

"And...stop. This is where the song begins, but since it's _not quite ready _yet," Derek said, once again glaring at the writers, "we'll skip ahead. Karen, pick it up with your next line..."

"Joe...where are you? Joe?"

"He's coming for me, of course. It's me that he fell in love with the first time, it's me that he falls in love with every time he gets some time by himself. It's only the reality of you that keeps driving him away. "

"No, There's more to me than golden hair and ivory skin and ruby lips. There's more to Joe than that, too. He's coming, but for me, the real me. I am Marilyn Monroe. The real Marilyn Monroe. I am Marilyn, I am, I am, I am..."

"Maybe. Maybe you're the real you, but I'm the best you. I'm the one that's in all of the pictures and the papers and the minds of all the young men and young girls. And that's what makes me the true Marilyn."

"No, Joe's coming. He's coming for me, in the flesh and blood. Warts and all. It's a mole, a blemish, that's the most famous part of my face. The imperfection. He's not coming for an image or an idea and that's all you were. That's all you _are_. A pretty object, something that you see and that draws you in, but nothing more. A mirage, an illusion with no substance. And that's only to the people who don't know me and who don't matter. I'm nothing? No, you're nothing. You don't even exist."

"Keep saying it. It might even turn out to..."

"Joe?"

She heard applause and smiled as the scene ended. Derek was unmoved. "That will do, at least until we get the song finished. We'll know more then."

"Let's take five," Linda announced.

* * *

At the break, Ivy felt a hand on her shoulder and turned.

"Just what the hell happened to you, anyways? How did you turn out like this?" she heard someone say. Karen. It had to be.

The question was aggressive, Ivy thought, but it wasn't rhetorical. Karen actually expected an answer and that made whatever guilt or embarrassment Ivy may have felt about this morning turn to anger. As if merely not liking Iowa was a sign of some sort of personality defect, some deep character flaw.

"Excuse me?"

"Look, I heard what you said this morning..."

"I'm sorry," she interrupted. "You weren't supposed to and I'm sorry you did but we..."

"But we just work together, we aren't friends, blah, blah, blah."

"Well, it's true," Ivy said defensively.

"I never said it wasn't."

"Just how self-absorbed do you have to be to think that there has to be something wrong with me for not liking you, anyways? Look, Iowa, we on't go well together. Some people are just like that, okay? That whole doe-eyed thing you have going on that everybody else finds so adorable? It irritates the shit out of me. "

"Yes," Karen replied dryly, "I believe you said that I'm Snow White earlier."

"I said you go around like you're Snow White, like you're the fairest of them all and that you're so pure and innocent and good and all the little woodland creatures should just want to flock to you and protect you. Like you wouldn't deign to do things like working for or fighting for the things you want because that would be lowering yourself or sullying yourself somehow. No, you just have to smile and be nice and eventually good things just come to you, as if by magic. You don't even have to work for them. Remember Cinderella? She worked her ass off, every single day, for years. And she did it with patience and dignity. That's why she deserved those things, deserved to get her break, not just because she was pretty and charming. They weren't all just given to her by fairy godmother for no reason at all. But somehow, that actually works out for you when it doesn't for all of the many, many other people out there who are just as good, who deserve it just as much, and..."

"Are you finished monologuing yet? Because there's nothing wrong with..."

"Being a Disney princess? Sure, when you're 7 years old. And then for most people, there comes a point when they realize that life isn't a fairy tale, that they can't get through life with just their smile. When they realize that the first part of the phrase 'childlike innocence' is, well, 'like a child' and that they have to put on their big girl pants and grow up now. It's no longer cute or endearing. And then there's that whole Iowa thing. Like you're the first person to ever come to New York from the Midwest. Your new roomie Jessica's from Illinois and..."

"Okay, so you're _not_ finished. And Jessica's from Lake Forest, that so does not count."

"Fine, whatever, that's so not even the point. You just wear your, well, your Iowa-ness on your sleeve, as if that makes you unique. Let me tell you something. Jane, the female lead in _Heaven on Earth_? She's from North Dakota. There are three types of people who move to New York from the country, Iowa. There are the ones who couldn't wait to escape their small towns, there are the ones who manage to recognize that they're in the greatest city in the world and find a way to appreciate that while still being proud of where they're from, and then there are the ones like you who keep acting like being from small towns in middle America somehow magically makes them better people than us jaded cityfolk and who won't stop going on about how people are just nicer and more relaxed back there without realizing how all that passive aggressive whining about their new home is, well, not very nice."

"So _now _are you done? Did you enjoy giving that soliloquy?"

"It's not a soliloquy," she said, almost automatically. "A soliloquy is when a character's talking to themself out loud so the audience can hear. I was talking to you, so that was just a monologue. You got it right the first time."

But the question was a good one, she thought. Back when she was Marilyn, she had just been lashing out because she had felt threatened when they clashed. Then, when she had lost Marilyn, it had turned into rage, a desire to wound her rival with her words, as well as a way to vent her frustrations. Now, the rage was gone and many of the frustrations relieved. But it was still cathartic, this.

"Fine, whatever. Did that make you feel better, give you another chance to tell yourself how you're superior to poor little princess Karen? And all I was going to say back then was there's nothing wrong with being nice and you have no idea about whether I've sacrificed, or how much I want something, or how much I've worked. And yeah, I wonder what happened to you to make you think that every little thing I do is supposed to be some kind of threat. You want to talk about self-absorbed? Try this, how self-absorbed do you have to be to think that whatever I do is all about you, that everything I say always has some sort of hidden meaning designed to hurt you."

"First, you're not my therapist. Second, no, it doesn't make me feel better to correct you. It's actually pretty annoying how not only do you not know the difference between a soliloquy and a monologue, you're flaunting that fact. And , no, there isn't anything wrong with being nice. I try to be, believe it or not, most of the time. No, don't laugh, look, I'm sorry about what happened with Dev, I've apologized for that, but I'm not a bad person. I'm really not. You just...I guess...well, you just get on my nerves, I don't know why exactly, and it doesn't really matter anyways. But..."

"I know you're sorry about that. I heard what you said to him then, too. On Monday, at the bar?"

The tension was oddly gone, Ivy noticed, and now it felt as if they were just talking. She nodded in response and wondered what.

"Yeah. What was with that about, anyways?"

"Oh, nothing, he just came to beg for another chance," said Karen, rolling her eyes. "He kept talking about how it was like a sign or something that he didn't get the job, how Bloomberg's term was almost up anyways and even if he'd gotten the promotion he'd be looking for work in a year or so anyways and DC was where the jobs were so we might still be having this conversation a year later. He said it was just something else to work through and we'd been having problems before and how this didn't have to change anything."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I mean, I guess we were having problems before, I don't know. I'd been so into the show and he wasn't ready for all of that, and then he had all his own stress to deal with, and..."

"And you weren't always able to stick around and be the supportive girlfriend when he needed it, and he didn't always get that," Ivy finished. "It happens a lot. Nobody's fault, really. We work weird hours, and sometimes very long and intense hours, and then when we're done we all go out and spend the night closing down bars and clubs to unwind, so everyone sees that and doesn't see all the sweat and tears and stress that we also put in. "

"It was a little bit my own fault too, I guess. I don't think you're...well...I guess I should have known..."

"It's happened to most of us before," Ivy noted. "There's a reason why we tend to pair off with other people in the industry if we're really looking for a happily-ever-after. Either that, or we wait until we've already made it big and can afford to be picky about where and when we work or until we're about ready to hang it up."

"No, I meant that night. When we were all in the hotel room, when you wanted to have that sing-off. I knew you were upset about something, that when you were singing those weren't just performance tears, it wasn't just you being really drunk or whatever, I mean I've seen you really drunk before and you're a happy drunk..."

"Don't remind me of that night," Ivy said. "Either of those nights, actually. There's a limit to how far this whole impromptu female bonding thing we've been doing goes and it's not nearly that far."

"No, I meant, you know, when you were leaning in and trying to get me to have that sing-off, when you were talking to me, I could tell you were in trouble. The others, they didn't get to see that so they didn't notice, but I did and I just ignored it. I should have said something."

She rolled her eyes again and laughed, shortly but not harshly. "This is so typical, you know. You finally manage to admit that you did something wrong, and your flaw is that Saint Karen didn't swoop in and save the day like she could have. I mean, this is exactly what I've been talking about and it's..."

Karen laughed along softly, to Ivy's surprise, interrupting her to, of all things, agree. "I see what you mean, I suppose."

"Yeah. I'm not perfect, but I've never thought that I was, and..."

"Thinking that you are is one of the easiest and most annoying flaws to have," Karen finished.

"Exactly."

The silence that followed was palpable, but not as awkward as it could have otherwise been.

"By the way," Karen said, breaking it, "people in Iowa usually have better manners than people here. But they're not always nicer or better."

"I'm glad you realize that." She paused, and then almost as an afterthought, opened her mouth again. "We're still not..."

"Best friends? Yeah, I got that, thanks. Colleagues, then?"

"Professionals. Who are capable of working with and being civil to someone who might not be their favorite person in the world because they have to. For now, at least."

* * *

"I'll see you on Monday Ivy," Derek had told her as she was leaving after rehearsal. It was not a question.

"You seem very sure of yourself," she said.

"When have I ever been anything else?"

"True. So you can read my mind now?"

"I don't need to. Here's how I know. Two reasons. There are times when you are not quite as complicated as you like to think yourself to be," he said. "And this is one of them. You don't really want to be the star. It would be nice, yes, but what you really want is to take the lead. It's merely that stardom usually goes along with that."

"Really? More semantics? Fine, I'll play along. What's the difference?"

"You want recognition more than you want attention. You want the people who know theatre to know that you can carry a production and that you can take a big part and make it yours more than you want people to just know your name. You'd like to see your name in lights, but more than that, you just want people in the seats to watch you. That's the difference. We all play in a very small pond here, after all, much smaller than the one in Hollywood. But you've never given a thought to moving there and trying your hand at movies or TV. Even in your dreams."

"That's all well and good, but I'm not the lead in this show either. And you really want me in _Bombshell_ because I'm like the Iowa-whisperer. You don't want me for me, you want me because she plays well off me."

"You have two solo numbers, a part in most of the other numbers, and almost as much stage time as she does, probably more than you would have in the other show. I know you've kept track of this, you are far too savvy not to have, but you can ask Linda if you want. You're a lead here. Not _the _lead, but the other show's more of an ensemble cast anyways. We'll put you up for leading actress along with her when it comes Tony time. And you _will_ get nominated. You probably won't win, but you will get a nomination, and that's something you can't say about the other show."

"There's still the question of whether I really want to work with _her_ though, knowing that she's the reason..."

"It still bothers you that much?"

"Yes..no...I don't know...sometimes. Look, I know show business isn't fair, I don't expect it to be. But I need it to make sense, or else what's the point of trying? And I will never accept that she's better..."

"She is," he quickly interrupted, cutting her off. "For her part, in my opinion. Which is what counts. You don't have to accept it but you do have to live with it. And yes, the way you play off each other is why I want you," he said. "I _sincerely _apologize for taking into account the chemistry my actors have with each other when I'm casting,"

A pause.

"For what it's worth, you were better in her part than she would be in yours. And you _do _want to work with her."

"How do you know?"

"That was reason number two. I heard the two of you talking. We director-types can eavesdrop too, you know. You are more than capable of ignoring her or smiling and saying something polite and leaving quickly or simply ranting about her to your friends. You didn't, you engaged her. You don't do that unless some part of you wants to get along, at least a little bit, and expects to see more of her in the future. You may not think you're staying with us, but without knowing it, you've already decided that you want to."

"Have I?"

"I'll see you on Monday."

She stood to leave, but as she did so, she said, "I'll see you on Monday."

She stopped and turned.

"I still have an apology to collect, after all."


	20. Chapter 20

So that was it, Ivy thought. She had made her choice and now, with rehearsal over, it was only a matter of making her way to her agent's office to sign the contracts. But sitting in the cab on her way downtown, she noticed a sickening feeling in the pit of her stomach as she wondered whether it had really been her decision. Derek had said those things about her with so much conviction, with so much finality, that she had felt compelled to agree, but now she wondered if she had let him bully her into having his way. The same way he had run over everyone to get his way in Boston, she thought, lip curling in disgust.

Well, she still had time to change her mind if she truly wanted, she reassured herself. Both contracts would be sitting in Chris's office, both signed and initialed and witnessed and waiting for her to do the same. But, she found, Derek was infuriatingly right. She had been keeping track over the past week of rehearsals, and by now, The Bombshell was far more than just a glorified shadow-self. Her character was one part narrator, two parts the personification of Marilyn's public image, with a hefty dose of Marilyn's subconscious thrown in, beginning the show as the personification of Marilyn's dreams and turning in to a full-fledged alter ego, one that would subtly begin to show cracks and flaws as Marilyn herself began breaking down. She had only one fewer solo than Karen and almost as much total stage time, by her reckoning.

She'd have solos as Carrie also, and be the lead in _Sex and the City_. And she'd have fun there, she knew. The numbers were almost certain to be upbeat and full of energy. But they probably would lack the layers and depth and ambition that _Bombshell_'s had. And she wouldn't really be able to truly leave her mark on Carrie the same way she would with The Bombshell, wouldn't be able to make the character truly hers in the same way.

It wasn't just that he was right about the shows, though. He was right about _her_. A month ago, that fact might have made her feel important and special, it might have encouraged her to know that Derek had known her so well, made her feel reassured that he did care about her. But his "that's why I love you" and the ensuing events had made her wary; now, his analysis seemed perfunctory, dismissive even. And it made her feel common, unimportant to be dissected so quickly and easily. And accurately.

Because what he had said was true, she knew. She could remember saying, two nights ago now while sitting in another cab with another man, that it wasn't about the fame or the trappings of stardom, and now Derek had said it to her, more quickly and pithily than she could ever have. Henry had been sweet, saying that she was wonderful and that she didn't need to worry about the rest. But she did. She had always known that she was good, that she had what it took to be a star. But there was, there would always be, doubt until she had some sort of confirmation. She couldn't just take her word for it. She needed for everyone else to agree. She needed the world to know how good she really was before she could truly believe it.

Derek had known that. But he had simply used that to get her to do what he wanted and that didn't sit well with her. And yes, he had paid the money for the insurance that would let her be in this show. But that didn't mean she owed him anything other than her gratitude. Which she had given him, and which he had barely acknowledged.

More than that, even if staying with _Bombshell_ was the right decision, she wasn't some indecisive, weak-minded little girl who needed a strong, assertive man to tell her what to do. She could decide which show was right for her all by herself.

That was what Henry had told her that night, she remembered, to just pick the show that she liked better and that felt right. Not necessarily the most original piece of advice, but it was true. And then, she remembered Tom, telling her that she understood Marilyn, and that had to mean something.

He was right, she realized. It did mean something.

Henry was right too. _Bombshell_ just felt right to her.

And Derek was right. About her and about the shows. She could admit that.

Yes, she was making the right decision. More importantly, _she _was making the decision.

She looked out the window to see where she was and waited for the cab to arrive at the office.

* * *

She didn't know exactly what she had expected, but it had been something more. It wasn't as if she thought that there would be thunder and lightning over Broadway to signal the arrival of a new star, for the heavens to announce that Ivy Lynn had come to join them. But she had believed that signing the contract that would change her life would feel more momentous, more spectacular. It was supposed to be the culmination of all of her dreams, after all, and it marked the moment that she, officially, became more than a chorus girl.

But instead she had listened, only half-paying attention, as Chris explained all the ancillary obligations that would come with being a lead now. The little promos she'd have to show up for, the interviews with the theater sites and critics she'd have to give, the new poster that they'd be shooting. She knew about all of them already, remembering them from when Leigh had performed. She was a bit more interested when he explained that she was actually going to share top billing with Karen. Iowa's name would come first, but they would share the top line and the posters would say "Introducing Karen Cartwright and Ivy Lynn in..._Bombshell_" with both their pictures. They would also take their curtain calls together, which, as Chris explained, meant that "for five minutes every night, she's your new best friend." Ivy nodded. She could do that.

She signed her name at all of the right places, and then watched as Chris followed suit and made a copy to give to her, before sending the original to be messengered over to Eileen. Then, she stared at the sheet of paper, reading and re-reading the unintelligible text, wondering if one of the words would contain something that would break the strange sense of unreality that had settled on her. _Ivy Lynn, leading actress_, she said to herself. _Ivy Lynn, star_ even. It sounded odd, in her mind. She had imagined those words before, of course, had dreamed about them, but dreams were just dreams. Mere hopes and wishes with only the hint of possibility to ground them in reality. Even when she had gotten Marilyn the first time, or when she had gotten the call from _Sex and the City_, it was all still hypothetical. What happened next was still up to her imagination then. But now, staring at the signed contract in her hand, it was reality. She had a leading role, she would play it on Broadway, and there would be nobody, nothing, that would take it away from her. It was all in her hand, and she didn't know precisely what she felt or how she should feel. There was excitement, of course, And it didn't feel hollow; on the contrary, it felt quite real, quite substantial. But this, the fact that it was real, that all of this was really happening to her, only made it feel more unreal, made her feel more uncertain. She wondered if reality could live up to her dreams, if she could live up to the part.

Then she smiled slightly. They always said to be careful what you wished for, she mused. That happiness didn't, that it couldn't, depend on these sorts of things but had to come from within. And certainly, her first run as Marilyn had brought her little joy. But that was different. There was Karen then, and then Rebecca Duvall, and then Karen again. But now they couldn't threaten her any more. She had always accepted the sayings, at least in theory, but she had also thought that _she _was different from all the people in those aphorisms, that this wasn't just something that she had dearly wanted but that it was something that she really needed to feel good about herself, and therefore, to be happy, and that once she got it, it would release her from all of the doubt and the anxiety, and then everything would change. The sun would be brighter, the sky would be bluer, the grass greener and the music louder, the roses redder and her hair blonder, all of that would happen once she had this, and then she would finally be free to be happy. But now, standing in Chris's office, there was satisfaction, yes, and happiness too, but no magical lifting of some metaphorical weight from off of her shoulders. She smiled again, more broadly this time. Perhaps there was wisdom in those aphorisms after all.

Chris's voice broke her thoughts again, as he finished explaining things and disposing of the _Sex and the City_ offer. "No hard feelings from them," he told her. "They understand, and they said they really would have loved to have you."

She smiled, shook his hand, and carefully placed the contract in to her bag before leaving his office.

* * *

Her phone had the address of the place they were all going to afterwards; her eyebrow raised slightly when she saw the name and address, a place swankier than their usual hangouts. When she arrived, she was quickly ushered by Sam to the upstairs area where she was greeted by the entire company of _Bombshell_, at least half the ensemble of _Heaven_, and various faces from various shows, some of whom she had forgotten were familiar. She began searching for one in particular, the one who she suspected had set this up.

He was at the front of the room. There wasn't a stage there, but there was a dais that seemed to serve as that, and Tom had a microphone in hand. "And a welcome welcome to the last member of our merry company," he said with a flourish, "the wonderful lady who completes us, both figuratively and in this case, literally..."

"What?" she asked Sam.

"Oh, you know Tom, he's just being Tom. What he means is that now that you've signed on, we've got a full company for _Bombshell _again."

"I thought that was Scott?"

"Yeah, but you're the last one to sign your contract. Everyone else had already. You're the one who makes it official. So the party's not _just_ for you, but..."

"Got it. And which one of you came up with the guest list? Did you just collect playbills from every show I've been in and invite everyone in the ensembles?" she asked skeptically.

"It was a collaborative effort. I'll leave it at that."

"...and now that our favorite gypsy has finally decided to settle down and make a home with us," Tom continued, "well, we're all moving to our new home too on Monday. That's right, _Bombshell_ starts rehearsal at the Stephn Sondheim Theatre on Monday, now that we've got every last bit of the show finished, barring any acts of God or, maybe more to the point, acts of Dark..."

"Wait, what's this?" she asked Sam again, confused.

"Oh, yeah, that, he told me this morning. He and Julia put the finishing touches on what he thinks will be the last changes, Derek seems to agree, at least for now. So Monday, we finish learning the show. Then we polish and all that. They all seem to want to start tech in a couple weeks. And we're doing it at the Sondheim, where we'll be opening."

"...and so," Tom concluded, "after we give a round of applause to Miss Ivy Lynn, let's all hear it for ourselves and for what a big step this is on the road to Broadway and to opening night. Come on, give it up!"

She gave Sam a hug before going to embrace Tom.

"Hey," she heard from Jessica, who was waiting for her once she had returned from the dais, Karen in tow. "So it's official and everything?"

"Yes," Ivy said, "yes it is. You aren't getting rid of me that easily."

"I wouldn't dream of trying," said Karen. Ivy started to glare at the Iowan, but caught herself and laughed. _Relax_, she told herself. The others soon laughed as well.

"Any big weekend plans?" asked Jessica.

"Absolutely nothing."

"Come on, come out with us tomorrow."

"Us?"

"Me, Sue, Iowa. It'll be a girl's night."

"No thanks, I'll be fine."

"And since when did you get old and boring?" Jessica giggled.

"Old and boring? Oh believe me, you couldn't keep up with me," Ivy said, smirking.

"So prove it. Come out with us"

"I will prove it. Come on, let's get some shots," she said, heading to the bar.

"Really?" Jessica asked, following. "You're really not going to come out with us? I mean, okay, I know you and Iowa aren't exactly the sisterhood of..."

"It's not that," she replied, "not at all. It's just that the past few weeks have been really, well, hectic. And they've been exciting and I'm thrilled and grateful about where I've ended up and everything, but you know, roller coasters are fun but you still want to get off eventually. I just think that I could use a completely relaxing weekend with absolutely nothing going on."

"Absolutely nothing?"

"Well, I might get some shopping in or something, I don't know. But, that's it."

"Not even with..."

"Well, we've texted each other a bit since he left my place the other day, but we haven't talked or seen each other or anything."

"So he's doing the usual guy thing," Jessica said rolling her eyes. "Typical. But at least you're texting each other."

"Yeah, and it hasn't been that long anyways. But enough about me, come on, you and Scott..."

"What?"

"Oh, so now how does it feel to be the one who won't give up the details?" Ivy asked with a grin.

"There _aren't_ any details..."

"First, that's totally my line, and second, come on, we can all see it..."

"We're friends, okay? I mean, fine, we used to, well, I don't know, nobody really 'dates' in college, because, you know, everyone sees each other so much every day anyways and we all pretty much live right by each other anyways. It's either straight-up hookups, hanging out with each other a lot and occasionally hooking up, or super-serious long-term might-as-well-start-ring-shopping relationships. But we were mostly in category two, I think. He was a year above me, so he got to New York first and there wasn't any big, dramatic breakup when he graduated because we really were just good friends who sometimes had sex with each other. We've only hooked up once or twice since we both got to New York, but we still hang out and we're still friends."

"And that's it?"

"I guess, I don't know. I mean, you know how it is with showmance. We've both done it, and I don't mean you and Derek. I mean, the guys in the ensemble, they're all in amazing shape, they all love the theater and they understand what it's like to have this life and you're spending so much of your time with them anyways. So, I mean..."

"Yeah, so if there's some sparks, you tend to just jump in with both feet. And there are definitely sparks here. Like I said, we all see it..."

"We'll see. Maybe."

"Speaking of Derek and showmance..." Karen piped up. Ivy had forgotten that she was still following Jessica.

"Oh come on," Ivy groaned. "Isn't there some sort of code about not going after your friends' ex-..."

"As you keep pointing out," Karen said with a grin, "we're _not_ friends."

Ivy laughed. "Touché. And I guess I'm probably the last person who should be talking about who's off-limits and..."

"Well," said Karen, "I wasn't going to say it, but yeah."

The shots came. "To co-stars, then?" Ivy said, downing her drink.

"Co-stars. Even if my name comes first," added Karen puckishly.

"True," Ivy conceded. "But only because C comes before L. And I meant all three of us."

"Oh God, please tell me that you two are not going to start fighting over this. Are you?" asked a concerned Jessica.

Both Karen and Ivy laughed in response. "No, not this. Now, who's getting paid more, on the other hand..."

"It's probably you," Karen said. "But only because you have a better agent. Mine's almost as inexperienced as I am."

"You should probably work on that. And it's also because I got another part."

"That too. Now dressing rooms..." Karen started.

"...if yours is a square inch bigger than mine, then so help me God, well, I don't know what I'll do," finished Ivy, before all three women started laughing.

"So, you want to have that sing-off after all?" said Karen suddenly.

"Oh, you are so on. Bring it, Iowa."


	21. Chapter 21

If signing the contract had made it all feel slightly unreal, arriving at the theater on Monday was what made her new status feel truly real, what made it tangible. A member of the production staff, one of Linda's assistants probably, had greeted her at the stage door with a polite "Good morning, Miss Lynn. Let me show you to your dressing room," and quickly whisked her downstairs. Seeing her name on a sheet of paper taped to the door of the dressing room felt far more substantial than seeing it on a dotted line at the bottom of a long, barely comprehensible document. It was a sign (literally) that it was all hers. And then there was the way that the assistant had called her Miss Lynn, quietly and deferentially. It really was all about the little things with her, Ivy thought.

It was big, she thought upon stepping in to the dressing room. Bigger than she expected and maybe even bigger than her apartment, and complete with her own shower and bathroom. She saw a couch by the far wall and decided to test it out. There was quite a bit of give when she sat down, and the frame felt a little rickety and the cushions overstuffed and old, but it was comfortable and more than big enough for her to recline fully on. Add in a few pillows from home and a soft blanket and it really would be a nice spot to nap in between shows. Something second-hand and broken can still make a pretty sound place to sleep for a few hours, she thought with a smile.

"So, is it bigger than mine?" she heard someone ask from the doorway.

"Karen?" she asked without turning.

"Okay wow, it is."

"This one is actually the biggest one in the theater," said the production assistant, chiming in.

"Yours is probably closer to the stage though," added Ivy.

"It's on the other side of the building, but yeah, I think it is," replied Karen.

"Well, it's like anything else in Manhattan real estate..."

"Location, location, location?"

"You're learning, Iowa," Ivy smirked. "It's at least as important as square footage, probably more so."

"Well, it's not like they put you way out in the boonies or anything."

"What, is that some sort of Iowa expression?"

"They don't say 'boonies' in New York?"

"I mean, I know what it means and everything, obviously, but..."

"True."

"But you're right, they didn't put me out in, as you put it, 'the boonies or anything.'"

Awkward silence resulted. Ivy smiled a tight, thin-lipped smile, wanting more time to take in her new space by herself. It was a personal, private moment for her, she thought, wondering if there was a polite way to shoo the interlopers away. Karen's expression was positively beatific, by contrast. The pause continued.

"Well, I'll see you up there?"

"See you, Iowa."

She resumed decorating the room in her mind. The counter, empty now, would soon become cluttered from all of the different makeup cases and other wardrobe accessories. There would be a rack on the side wall that would have her costumes, as well as her blue-green dressing robe. She had always favored that color; it featured heavily in her closet at home, along with various hues of red.

She would put in a bookshelf, probably by the couch. It could hold her Marilyn biographies and her script and whatever book she might be reading in her spare time. A mini-fridge and a microwave would go in too, and she might ask for a small TV. She'd be spending enough time here for it to truly qualify as a home, after all. The little Marilyn pictures that had adorned her little section of the mirror as a chorus girl would be getting a new, more expansive home of course. They would be joined by several more, and maybe a larger, framed Marilyn on the wall near the entrance. A _Bombshell _poster would go on the wall on the opposite side of her vanity, while cast photos and playbills from all of the many other shows she had been in would go on the far wall, above the couch. She could think back on those days fondly now.

"Miss Lynn?"

Her thoughts interrupted once again, Ivy turned and saw the production assistant, who she had forgotten was still there.

"I believe that they're about to start..."

She laughed happily.

"Well then, it's hi-ho hi-ho, off to work I go. And please, I'm just Ivy."

* * *

With the last new number added, Karen and Ivy's duet during the two Marilyns scene, the show felt complete. But there were still changes. With Ivy's promotion, the presence of the shadow-selves felt extraneous. Which meant "Smash!" had to be re-worked as a whole-ensemble piece. But Derek seemed as if he were more interested in giving notes to their Zanuck, Mark, while they were doing "Don't Say Yes."

"Look, you understand where this is in the show, right? We're in the heart of the second act, and we have a billion different weepy ballads and angry, edgy uptempo pieces all chronicling Marilyn's breakdown. This, this is the light, comic, _fun_ number. The song is a lot darker than the jaunty melody if you listen to and really think about the lyrics, but you have to play it broadly on stage. It's a scene in a steam room for heaven's sake. You have to be more over the top, more flamboyant, more..."

"More gay?" Tom asked, provocatively.

"Excuse me?" Derek asked, softly, yet menacingly.

"We have Zanuck dismissing Marilyn, talking about replacing her, and being the villain. So of course we have to put him in a room full of sweaty, naked men while he's doing this and now you're telling him to act 'more flamboyant'? Come on."

"You have _got_ to be kidding me," said Derek. "I believe it was Julia who informed us all that he held meetings in the steam rooms?"

The redhead, however, merely rolled her eyes and remained silent. Ivy could understand the feeling. She could remember finding herself bothered by comments here and there from Derek, off the cuff remarks that weren't homophobic _per se_ but definitely had unsettling implications. But be that as it may, this, she thought, sounded more like Tom looking for a reason to be offended by Derek. Whatever she thought, though, she had little desire to get in the middle of this fight and absolutely none to take the director's side against her good friend. So she, like Julia, said nothing and kept watching.

And Derek kept talking.

"You know, this is what I hate about gays and the New York theater, you are always acting as if..."

_And here we go_, Ivy thought. This would be where Derek would just have to prove Tom right by going on some horrendous diatribe, even if his notes were completely innuocuous to start with.

"...so fine, I'm done fighting over this. The theater is yours..."

"You know, this is just _so _typical, and it's exactly what people mean when they talk about privilege..."

"Ah yes, straight white male privilege," said Derek drolly. "Because for a straight white man to want to do something that he enjoys and happens to be rather bloody good at, that means we're just assuming that we're the best and that we should just be welcomed everywhere by..."

"No, and I'm ignoring how you seem to think of us as all completely identical and interchangeable. The privilege is the idea that because it's just so _natural _and _normal_ for the straight white male to dominate everything and to be the best, so if there's just one thing like, oh, I don't know, the theater, where the straight man isn't always in charge and there are a lot of gays in important positions, why, that just has to mean it's just some weird little gay thing not fit for normal men, and that it's dominated by some sinister homosexual cabal bent on keeping the straight man down. And just so you know, Zanuck was straight as straight can be. He had a wife and a son who followed him in to the business. And..."

_Go Tom! _cheered Ivy.

"Not that it matters," said Derek, cutting in, "but neither of those is definitive..."

"Ah yes, of course. Here it is. It all comes out now. Why you are so absolutely obsessed with seeing Marilyn as all purity and innocence, a little girl ill-used and then discarded by a powerful, older man who didn't care for her. It all makes perfect sense now. But I have news for you. Marilyn is _not_ Cora. And Zanuck is _not_..."

_Cora?_ Ivy wondered. _Who was Cora?_ She remembered that Tom and Derek had once been friends long ago, and made a note to remember to ask the composer the next chance she got.

"Oh how very clever," retorted Derek sarcastically. "What marvelous insight. Yes, my direction of this show is really just a mainfestation of my deep-seated Oedipal complex. Congratulations, you have me all figured out. Even if modern psychiatry considers virtually all of Freudian theory to be hopelessly antiquated nonsense, you've proven them all wrong with your spectacular analysis. Now, as I was saying, I am fully aware that Darryl Zanuck was straight. And yet, he needs to be played more flamboyantly. Is that quite alright? Or do you people own that word now? And if you do, could you tell me what other words I could use instead? Thank you."

"I believe our time's almost finished anyways," interrupted Linda.

"Ah, and saved by the bell," Ivy joked. She didn't know exactly which one had been the one saved.

* * *

"Ivy?"

She had heard her name being called almost immediately upon exiting the stage door and turned her head to find its source.

"Henry?"

"What are you doing here?"

"Um, it's a theater? It's kind of my home. You know, a more romantic man wouldn't question it, he'd just say that it was fate and destiny that we met here or something. And what are _you _doing here?"

"Well, it's _my_ theater," he joked. "It's got my name on the front and everything."

She laughed. It wasn't the most original of remarks, but he was actually right about having his name carved in the theater's stone facade. "Oh yeah, it does, doesn't it?"

"Also, I work here."

"The theater?"

"No, this building right here, next to the theater. My office is on the 42nd floor. You know, just in case you ever decide you want to be a stalker one day."

"Good to know. _Bombshell_'s going to opening here this fall."

"Yeah? That's awesome. And that, milady, is what's fate and destiny. That we're both going to be working next door to each other. And that your name's going to be on the front of this place, just like mine."

"My name, my face staring out at you from the posters and the window..."

He chuckled. "That'll be something. I remember last year, they had that tall girl in the sailor suit up there on the posters and the window. The guys in the office had this running argument over whether she was hot or not, it started up anytime someone mentioned the place or we passed it and...what, is Sailor-girl your friend or something?"

"No, no," she scoffed. She wasn't aware that she had reacted, but he had stopped to ask her that. "She's, well, she's kind of a big deal. Also? Just so you know, you kind of work with douchebags."

"Oh, believe me, I know. I've known that since before I ever started law school, and I get reminded of it every time I go in to the office on weekends."

"That sounds like there's a story involved."

"Yeah, there is. A boring one."

"Try me."

"So, you know how I went to NYU for law school? Well, Goldman puts up a lot of their summer analysts up in the same buildings we use for our dorms. So when I was first moving in, I found out that a bunch of guys had already moved in to try and schmooze the baby bankers. I mean, yeah, networking's important, it's not what you know, it's who you know, et cetera et cetera and whatever, but come on, we don't have jobs yet, we haven't even started law school yet, and they're still in undergrad. I mean..."

"Yeah," she said, agreeing. "And the weekend thing?"

"Oh, that. It's not a big deal. Well, I work on the weekends a lot. Everyone in the office does, and that's annoying in itself, of course. It's not as bad for me as when I was an associate, but it still happens. And there's no official dress code on the weekends, but the unofficial uniform is that everyone has to wear their college sweatshirt to the office. And you'd think it wouldn't matter by now, but everyone totally judges each other by where they went to school. Especially the people whose law school was much fancier than their undergrad school."

"Like you?"

"Hey, NYU's slightly fancier, it's a top 5 law school, but you know I went to Penn for undergrad and it's an..."

"An Ivy," she finished for him, smirking.

"Yes, it is an Ivy. And that's the greatest compliment of all," he said, smiling.

She beamed. "That's sweet. A little cheesy, but sweet."

"Yeah, it was a little bit lame, but it's the thought that counts right?"

"Now you're just trying to milk it," she said.

"Yeah, well, I had to try. So is she bigger than your mom?"

"What? Who?" she asked, confused.

"Sailor-girl. You said she's kind of a big deal. You said before that your mom was kind of a big deal. So who was a bigger deal?"

She laughed. "You know, I love that you're just calling her Sailor-girl." There were advantages to dating someone who knew nothing about the theater, mostly that he didn't know who Leigh Conroy was and didn't care that Leigh was her mother and would never compare her to Leigh, but also that she found the name 'Sailor-girl' endlessly amusing. The downside, of course, was that he knew nothing about the theater, which was only the one thing she felt more passion for than anything else.

"Mom," she answered without hesitation. But then she started pondering the question some more. "Well, they both have two Tonys but theater was bigger back then and, well, Mother's a legend. But she's also been retired for a while now and Sailor-girl's probably the biggest thing on Broadway right now. Even though she's not actually _on _Broadway right now, she's not in a show or anything, well, she's supposedly off in LA filming a pilot or something. Anways, that's not the point, when she's ready to hang it up, there's no doubt that everyone will be calling her a legend too."

"You know her?"

"I know _of _her. As you might have guessed, Sailor-girl and I run in completely different circles." And for all of her many shows, Ivy thought, they had never been in one together.

"You're really not going to tell me Sailor-girl's name, are you? You're going to make me keep calling her Sailor-girl."

She laughed again. "No, I think I'm going to keep you guessing on that one. And I like the name Sailor-girl. By the way, what do you think?"

"What?"

"Sailor-girl. Was she hot or not?"

"I'm not going to answer that. Because there really is no good way to answer that question, is there?"

"Hey, look, you can't take the Fifth, buddy. And you're the one who brought up the subject, so really..."

"Fine." He smiled. "Well, she's tall, slim, and leggy...

"Wow," Ivy broke in. "You just named the exact three things that guys like and I'm not. Thanks a lot, ass..."

"...but she doesn't have your curves. Guys like that, too. Or at least this guy does. Honestly, Sailor-girl's face, it's not classically beautiful, but I don't know, it's just really striking and attractive and I like it. But she's got nothing on you."

"Well, you know my best feature at least," she laughed.

"The second-best, actually. The best is actually your smile."

"Really?"

"Really."

"Look, you want to grab dinner nearby or something?"

His eyes sparkled. "Are you asking me out, Ivy?"

"I believe that I am."

"Well then, I accept. Lead on."

**A/N:** The Conde Nast Building, where Henry's firm Skadden has its New York offices, really _is _located next door to the Stephen Sondheim Theatre. And believe it or not, it really does have Henry Miller's Theatre carved in the front edifice. You can see a picture of the theatre building here - img6. imageshack .us /img6/9868/ anythinggoesatstephenso .jpg (you'll have to take out all the spaces in the URL when you copy-paste because this site doesn't like links, apparently).

You can even see "Sailor-girl" on the marquee. The Conde Nast building is out of the frame (there's a covered walkway where the stage door of the theater is; the Conde Nast building is on the other side of that walkway. The building on the left that you _can _see in the picture is the Bank of America Tower).

A lot of Wall Street interns - or "summer analysts" - really do stay in NYU dorms for the summer, and the law school's are considered among the nicest. They really are filled with interns for Goldman Sachs. I didn't go to NYU for law school, but my friend who did tells me that while it's not common, showing up early to network with the future investment bankers absolutely does happen and that the people who do that are every bit as obnoxious as you'd imagine.

Carla - Aww, thanks! I'd like to think that they might not be best friends, but they can definitely get along and trade one-liners when they're hanging out with their mutual friends or just at work.


	22. Chapter 22

The problem with asking a guy who made at least ten times what she made out on a dinner date in Times Square, Ivy thought, was selecting the restaurant. There were the tourist traps, the ones that were easy to avoid. And then there were the places you took someone to impress them, but then, they were out of her price range. _Would he expect her to pay?_ she wondered. She had done the asking, after all, but then, he _was_ the guy and he did make about ten times what she made, maybe he would insist on paying. But she didn't want to gamble her ability to pay for her meal on that chance, nor did the fact that she _would _be depending on him for that sit particularly well with her. So those were out, at least unless he made it clear that he wanted to go to one of those places and wanted to pay first. She knew plenty of diners and bars, most of which served food that was somewhere in between "mediocre" and "good."

"So, any favorite places in the area?"

"Does Keen's count?"

"You want to take me to Keen's for our first real date?"

He pursed his lips together, in an inscrutable look, before grinning crookedly. "First of all, Keen's is awesome. Best steak in the city, and you don't even have to go to Brooklyn. Second, technically, you asked _me _out, so really, I wouldn't be taking you anywhere."

"Semantics," she retorted.

"True, but that doesn't change anything. Also, I _have _taken someone out to Keen's for a first date before. The second-worst first date ever, and I'm never doing it again." He paused. "But because this isn't our first date..."

"Okay, so, managing to pick me up at a bar? Totally does not count. Neither does picking me up at a wedding."

"The baseball game?"

She laughed heartily. "Do you really want me to remember you as the guy who took me to a Mets game for a first date? But fine, first real date that doesn't end up with one of us going home with the other."

"Not even if I play my cards right?"

"Sorry," she smirked.

"Well then, color me disappointed. Still, there was brunch? Sunday after the wedding? I know what you're about to say, you want to count it as part of the wedding, but it was a separate thing. We made awkward small talk that got less awkward and more fun, you told me about your mother, we got to know each other a little better and learn that we liked each other? It was totally a first date, a damn good one if I do say so myself."

"Fair enough. Also, _second_-worst? I think it's funny that you're that specific about it."

"And yet, it's true. I was poor and still in school so I just took her to the bar. I mean steakhouse bars, they've got great happy hour deals and you get the atmosphere of..."

"You went to the bar at Keen's for the atmosphere? Well there's your mistake right there. Never take a girl to a place where there's a painting of a naked chick staring out at her from behind the bar. Come on, that's basic stuff right there..."

"Okay, fair point. Actually, that's pretty much what happened. I asked for menus, the waiter gave me the happy hour menu and gave her the regular dinner menu. I figured he was trying to inflate the check, and I just sat there staring into space trying to come up with a way to point out we had different menus and suggest she order off that one while thinking there really is no non-awkward way of saying 'please don't order off the dinner menu, I'm poor.' So she..."

"And she thought you were staring at the naked lady? Hah. And no, there really is no good way of saying that. But it serves you right, you never take a date somewhere unless you can pay for everything on the menu. I mean, yeah, if she orders one of those publicity-stunt thousand-dollar-whatevers with caviar and gold leaf and shaved truffles then sure, stick her with the bill and be glad you dodged a bullet. But otherwise, what I said before. It might mean you're going on a lot of dates at McDonald's, but you get a chance to, you know, really think outside the box and impress a girl, and it's more honest. It lets her know what she's getting. Also, that was only _second_-worst? What did you do for the worst, take her to Scores?"

"Hey, _we_ met at a steakhouse bar, don't knock it. Not Keen's, but still. And Scores? Come on, you've got to give me some credit here, I'm a little smoother than that. I picked you up, after all."

"You know, I hate to deflate your male ego here, but trust me, I was low-hanging fruit. You just happened to catch me..."

"...at your worst. You told me that once. Remember what I said then? If that was you at your worst, then you must really be something special at your best. Well, you are. And yet, you're still here."

"I guess I am, aren't I?"

"Yep."

"Okay, that was really sweet," she conceded. "You can be pretty good at this when you want to be."

"Well, now that my male ego has once again been properly engorged, I have to..."

"Really?" she snorted, cutting him off. "'Your male ego has been properly engorged?' _That's_ your word choice? Didn't I just say that nobody's taking anybody home tonight," she said, laughing.

"Oh, I'm sorry," he said, mockingly apologetic. "Was that too dirty for you? Would you care to define an acceptable level of double entendre for us here?"

She giggled. "I don't know. Depends on just how bad your worst date really was, I guess."

"Oh, the worst date was also totally not my fault. It was also when I was poor and still in school and was a double date at some place down in Chinatown with my buddy Danny. So, Chinatown's not like Little Italy, I mean, it's actually possible to find a decent Chinese place in Chinatown that's not just for the tourists and we'd found one. Anyways, Danny speaks Chinese, his parents are from Hong Kong, so he orders in Chinese. The waiter looks at his date and they really start talking. Danny laughs nervously, waiter laughs again, and then Danny's date stands up and she's got this look. Like, I'm terrified that she's going to, I don't know, scald him with the boiling hot tea or stick a chopstick in his eye or something. Then she goes and says something in Chinese and I should mention that she's like, the waspiest, preppiest, most All-American looking girl ever. I mean, blonde hair, blue eyes, the whole deal. Then she goes and whispers something to my date and they both leave. Later Danny tells me that the waiter was making some rather, uh, graphic jokes about what he'd like to do to his date and he didn't want to make a big scene because he figured, you know, no way anybody can figure out what the guy's saying, what's the point? But, well, it didn't turn out that way and my date..."

"You know, women like a guy who can take charge of a situation," she said. "That's why she bailed there."

"Well, in that case, executive decision here. That place," he said pointing to a restaurant on the corner.

"Is it really taking charge of a situation if you're only doing it after I suggested it? Because, really, that would be me..."

"Ivy?"

"Yeah?"

"I like you. I think you like me. We have fun together. Stop analyzing this and just relax and go with it."

"People tell me that a lot," she said with a smile. "Let's go."

"See?" he grinned. "Taking charge of the situation."

* * *

The place on the corner was a sushi bar, one they both knew. They shared a bottle of sake and split a sushi platter.

"I'm just glad I didn't accidentally pick one of the tourist traps," he said.

"You're lucky. They're pretty much all tourist traps on this block," she replied.

"Well, the barbecue place on the other side of the block is pretty good, the diner across the street's decent. The sushi here's not bad, I mean, it's not the best in the city or even the best around here. The one on the other side of the block's better. But this is the best sushi you can get on Seamless in Midtown, so, yeah, I probably give this place at least a hundred bucks a week of the firm's money."

"The firm's money?" she asked.

"Yeah. The most important thing about working in a Manhattan office job that nobody ever teaches you is how to properly work the Seamless. The firm pays for dinner after 7, there's a 25-buck-a-head limit and you're not supposed to order in alcohol, but there are ways around both of those conditions. If you're a real pro at it, you can find a way to do your shopping on the Seamless."

"Do you?"

"I did it once, just to prove that I could, when I was younger. It's not worth the bother, though. I'm a partner here, I take home seven figures now, I'm not going to all that trouble just to save a few bucks on groceries. By the way, I talked to your producer the other day, Eileen? That thing with the kid and your friend Tom, it's taken care of."

"Oh, well played," she noted.

"What?"

"The way you just worked that in there, how you took care of the problem, right after casually dropping that you make over a million a year."

"Ivy," he said patiently, "you knew what I do and where I worked already. I'm pretty sure I didn't need to drop anything about my salary, you probably already had a pretty good idea. And I thought you'd be interested in getting an update about what's happening with your show. You're the one who called me last week to tell me about it, remember?"

"Yeah, I know." He was probably right, she was overanalyzing things again. She could remember when they had met, how she had been the one who asked where he worked, how he had frowned slightly before answering that time. It seemed so long ago but it had only been a couple of weeks.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I don't want to do this, I tell myself to stop it when I catch myself doing it sometimes, but so many other times, I just can't help it. I mean, I can do bubbly and charming, I think it's actually pretty close to my normal personality when I'm not, well, when I'm not dealing with all of that _extra_ _stuff_. But I've had to deal with a lot of it, and sometimes it just gets to me, you know? And all of this is just how I deal with it, it's just how my mind works, and it's how I keep myself from getting hurt. It's just that, well, this business, you have people telling you that you're great and wonderful and talented and beautiful, all the time. Everybody gets that, even the ones who don't make it, who will never make it. And sometimes the people saying these nice things, they even mean it. So if you want to have a chance, if you want to know where you really stand, you have to learn how to read between the lines. And if you don't want to just keep setting yourself up for heartbreak, you've got to realize that most of the time when people say you're wonderful, they're just being nice, and even when they do mean it, it doesn't mean that something great's going to come of it. This is, I don't know, it's almost like an instinct by now. I learned all of this early, just from my mom. I remember when I was very little, when I'd just discovered that I loved this thing and that I was pretty good at it, and I was in a play at my school, and mom, for once, had come to see me and..."

She paused. By now, her friends knew that her relationship with Leigh was, well, difficult. But she had launched in to the story without planning to tell it, without knowing that she had started telling it. It was actually something she hadn't really told anyone yet.

"You don't need to explain," he said. "I like that about you, actually. That you can, like you said, do bubbly and charming, that it can be the real you, but that you can be so wary and worldly and savvy at the same time."

"No, I want to tell this story," she found herself saying to her own surprise. "So, there was my mom, Broadway legend, coming to see me in my school play. You can imagine how excited I was, and then when she came over to get me, she smiled and told me I was wonderful. I went off to say goodbye to some of my friends and when I came back, mom was talking to some of the other parents who had recognized her. One of them had just told mom that I was awesome and that there was another actor in the family and, of course, that made me happy. Mom just said that I was 'not bad' even if I was a little bit 'sharp,' that I had worked really hard on it and that it was pretty good, and that even if I wasn't going to go on Broadway she was proud of me, one actress in the family was enough, she wasn't going to guide me through to the theater. And of course, I heard all of that. Right after telling me how great I was, she was going around to all of the other parents telling them how I was just okay, that the theater which I had already discovered that I loved, just wasn't for me. So you can imagine how all of that, it's just gotten stuck in my head, and it's just what I do now."

"Yeah, I can. I just hope you'll remember that you've proven her wrong already."

"I know," she said. "And that there are some people who've always believed that she was wrong. I didn't have the best mother in the world, but I made some of the best friends in the world on Broadway. It's just that it's hard to train myself not to think that way sometimes. Oh, by the way, I probably should have mentioned it earlier, but I'm glad you could take care of that thing with Ellis."

"Oh, right, the kid. I did very little, actually. What happened was that Ellis and Eileen's ex-husband's production company had formed a joint-venture, an LLC, to produce their own competing Marilyn show and they were pursuing litigation to acquire the rights to the show. Most of the legal work for these productions is performed by one of several boutique firms and all of these firms have worked for the ex's production company at one time or another and he retained them all to do various small things, so that they'll all be conflicted out when he initiates..."

"Sorry, but in English please?" she asked.

"Okay, so Jerry and Ellis, they formed their own production company to put on their own Marilyn show and they were going to sue to get the rights to Marilyn. Also, there are only a few law firms that work with Broadway. Jerry hired them all to do various little things so that when he sued Eileen, she wouldn't have anyone to represent her because of the various conflict of interest rules, so she, once again, would be pressured in to settling. All I did was do a basic search and find the company Jerry and Ellis formed, and pull their paperwork, and then put two and two together. Then I told her she could use my card. Which has the firm's name on it, of course. Skadden's not one of the firms that works with the theater industry, but we're very big and we have a lot of muscle and nobody pushes our clients around. We're the people you hire when you want to do the pushing around. Also, I gave the stuff about the company to her divorce lawyer. The firm doesn't do divorces either, but I don't think you're allowed to try and screw with your ex's ability to make money like that. Anyways, Eileen got back to me, told me that Jerry backed down and pulled the kid's backing, and Ellis just dropped his claim and went away for a promise not to blacklist him. Which pretty much clears the way for the show to go on."

"Well, even though you weren't trying to impress me, I have to say, I _am _impressed."

"Thanks. Hey, you want to go to a party later this week? Thursday, maybe?"

"What?"

"It's a business thing, a reception sponsored by one of our clients and with a whole lot of potential clients, and I'm sorry I keep asking you to these instead of coming up with better date ideas myself, but, well, I have to go to these things and I know I'd love your company."

"Well then, I'll see you on Thursday."

* * *

At rehearsal the next morning, she waited eagerly for the first break so she could corner Tom and ask him the question she so wanted answered.

"So who was Cora?"

Her friend gave her a wan smile and sighed before saying, "Ivy, she's exactly who you probably think she is."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means, take a guess. You'll probably get it right."

"Okay. Derek's mother?"

"Right in one. Yes, Cora was Derek's mother."

"What was she like? Did you ever..."

"I never met her. She had died long before I ever met Derek, I never asked how and he never told me. But I know he always blamed his dad for, well, I don't know if it was for her death per se, but it was for something related to her. I saw a picture of her once. She had her own corner devoted to her at his place back then, I'm surprised you never noticed her anywhere before."

"Well, it's been a while since you were on visiting terms with him," she noted. She hadn't noticed any pictures of anyone at Derek's apartment. Now that she thought about it, it was actually remarkable just how impersonal his home had seemed. Beautiful, yes, but with that cold, interior-decorated-to-every-inch, straight-off-of-a-photoshoot-in-a-magazine-and-rarely-lived-in quality. Odd, given how Ivy knew just how much time Derek spent awake, working. There were lots of blacks and whites, all sleek lines and stark contrasts. Upscale modernist, she thought, making an internal face. She had never cared for the style; too cold, too eager to look sophisticated and contemporary and leaving no room for any real personality. And while she knew that Derek's wardrobe was heavy on the blacks and on updated basics, it still didn't seem like the decor was _quite _his taste, but rather someone seeking to emulate his taste. Trying far too hard to emulate his taste and not quite pulling it off. In any event, she couldn't ever remember seeing a single photograph, anywhere, in the apartment. It looked like the place that a Dark Lord _would _live in, and she was sure that there had been more to him than that. He was all about the work, he had a passion for theater, and she could see no evidence of any flair or passion or feeling or any sort of artistic temperament in his home. It all felt so very corporate.

"Yeah. It has been," said Tom. "And it's a different place he has now than he had then, of course. I don't remember seeing it at Lyle's party way back when, though. It was an old picture, anyways. Very faded. It was a color picture, but everything had already been yellowed. But she was a pretty thing. Tall, with long brown hair. She was from the country, the west midlands of England. Shropshire, to be exact. He would say that she was 'a Shropshire lass' sometimes."

"A Shropshire lass. He called her that? Appropriate, especially if she..."

"If she died young. Which she did. Like..."

"Like Marilyn did," Ivy finished, before laughing, quickly and harshly and without humor, while shaking her head. "Oh my God, you were right. That's why...Marilyn...it _was _all just an Oedipal thing. That's...that's why he sees her..."

"What?"

"Karen. That's..."

"Oh come on. Be gracious, Ivy," Tom said, reproaching her gently. "She's good. And you know that's not what I meant and besides, you..."

"I know, I know. But this isn't about that. In Boston, he told me he saw her as Marilyn. Karen, that is. And I don't mean he imagined her as Marilyn or he wanted her as Marilyn, I meant he said he saw her saw her, like, he had actual visions. Not he had a vision, like an artistic vision or something like that, but actual, literal visions, where, I don't know, Iowa's prancing around in full Marilyn costume and singing to him and demanding that he cast her or whatever, I don't know. I mean, I know I'm not making much sense right now and I know this sounds crazy or like it's just me being bitter but I swear, that's what he told me. That he had visions of Karen as Marilyn, and that he couldn't help it but he kept seeing them, like they were hallucinations or something. I mean, he said it like he didn't have a choice. I just thought it was bullshit then, like he had already broken my heart in so many ways but now he couldn't even give me the dignity of an honest answer, he just had to tell me how it wasn't his fault, but he just _had _to do it, like he didn't even respect me enough not to think that I'd buy something as ridiculous as that. I never thought that...well...I guess it all makes sense now, even how..."

Her voice trailed off as she avoided revealing what Karen had told her about being second choice in Derek's bed as well. Well, that was what a classic Oedipal complex was about, she thought, that's where it got its name, after . But she didn't need to say it out loud. For one, she was pretty sure that Tom was more than capable of putting it together himself, but also, and more importantly, because she didn't need any more pity. She had never needed nor wanted it, pity being an emotion one only felt for those one considered to be lowly. It was the better-intentioned cousin of condescension, and besides, with everything that had happened to her since getting back to New York, her condition was far from pitiable. And that applied to self-pity as well, she resolved.

"Even how?"

"Never mind. It doesn't even matter anymore."

"It doesn't. Anyways, what I said, it was really about his father, not his mother."

It was remarkable, she thought, just how little she actually knew about Derek. They had been a real couple, of that she was sure. She had kept a toothbrush and a change of clothes at his apartment and he had been a regular guest at hers. He always had better luck with the often temperamental plumbing in her building than she had. She could remember saying as much once and remarking that she should invite herself in while he showered. He had grinned wolfishly and made the requisite comments about being all wet and coming out dirtier than when she entered, but she had laughed. And now that she recalled the impersonal nature of his place, she started to wonder whether that was why he had spent so much time at hers.

Her own home was tiny and cluttered. Posters from shows and little knick-knacks everywhere, mismatched dishes and plastic glasses in the kitchen. Her shoe collection, something of a point of pride with her, lined up on the window sill like trophies. Furniture that clearly didn't match, but nevertheless worked together, somehow. And little girlish touches, like the sparkly curtain that served as the entrance to her closet. It felt like a glorified dorm room, or a first apartment in the city after finally leaving the nest. Which it was. Maybe it was that lived-in quality that made him want to spend time there, instead of taking her back to his place.

But she couldn't know, because he had never said. He had said so little about himself that she had had to ask who his mother was. His father, she knew. Humphrey Wills, a director and sometime producer and a prominent member of the theater community in his own right. But he had never once mentioned him.

"His father, Humphrey, did he..."

"Whatever he did or did not do was certainly none of your business whatsoever..." she heard a voice say. She hadn't noticed Derek come in. Ivy blushed in embarrassment and attempted to force out an apology, but Derek didn't give her a chance. "...and whatever he knows, he had no right whatsoever to share. Now if we're quite finished, I believe our break is almost over."

**A/N:** Guest - Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed the reference and that you think it was organic to the story. And while I think it might be fun to write that scene later, I'd have to think of a way to make it fit. The last scene in the story is the Tonys next year, so maybe they'll have time for a brief conversation at the ceremony.

Shanshii - Thank you. Like I just said, I'm glad that you like the references. I like putting them in in order to, as you said, add some verisimilitude and sometimes because I think its witty and fits with the dialogue, but I do worry sometimes about disrupting the flow of the story, of making it seem as if I was writing around in order to make a reference fit. I'm glad you don't think that's the case.

On to this episode's references! _A Shropshire Lad _is a collection of poems by poet A.E. Housman. You probably have (or will) read either "To an Athlete Dying Young" or "When I Was One and Twenty", probably both, in your English class, even if you don't remember it. In any event, one or both is almost certainly in your textbook. Anyways, both poems are part of the collection. The collection has themes of loss, love, and especially mortality, which is why Tom and Ivy find it an appropriate nickname for someone who was unlucky in love and died young like Cora (or Marilyn herself, for that matter).

Keen's is a real steakhouse and it does serve a good steak. It's very much an old-New-York, smoke-filled-room, boys-club type of place (it used to be a private smoking club, in fact) and it does, in fact, have a nude portrait behind its bar.

Seamless is the website/portal for ordering takeout food online and having it delivered to the office that most offices in Manhattan use. As for the workarounds, they're actually not that complicated. In my experience, as long as you don't go crazy and really abuse it, most companies won't mind if once in a while you use your absent coworkers' meal allotments when you're ordering on Seamless. So, basically, an occasional steak or lobster dinner, fine. A tin of osetra or a bottle of Petrus? Not so much. As for grocery shopping, that's pretty easy also. Just order what you want online, and the restaurant will automatically deliver to your office. Then call up the place and ask to change the delivery address to your place. Ask your doorman to sign for your stuff and hold it for you to pick up when you get home. You can also call the restaurant to change your order, which is how you get around the 'no ordering alcohol on Seamless' rule. Disclaimer: so, these are workarounds, and they're probably against the rules at your office. And I'm definitely not advocating that you break the rules of your office or do anything to risk your employment, certainly not on my word. So, if you want to try these, be careful, and know what your boss/company is like first!

Anyways, thanks to everyone who's still reading and reviewing this, and hope you enjoy.


	23. Chapter 23

She tried to apologize twice that day without success. The next morning, he rebuffed her as well. Never directly, of course, but he didn't need to. He simply made sure not to be alone in a room with her and made sure she knew that was exactly what he was doing. She was savvy enough to take the hint. So for the rest of that day, she played along, willing to pretend that she hadn't been gossiping about his past, that she hadn't found out about his mother, and that he hadn't overheard. Whatever his true thoughts about what had just happened were, though, he didn't seem to be taking it out on her in rehearsal.

That, in itself, made her wonder briefly - but only briefly. He had never been anything other than harsh to her in rehearsal when she had been Marilyn and they had been dating each other; she had once wondered if he had been overcompensating then, that it had actually been a sign that she had meant something and he had acted callously towards her to make sure that everyone, including Ivy, knew that there would be no special treatment, to publicly mask the affection that he privately held. She wondered now if the same was happening in reverse. For a second, she even wondered if he knew that this was how she would react, and that was why he had acted as he had.

But she pushed those thoughts away quickly.

Another Ivy, one who hadn't survived the ups and downs of the past month, the nervous, insecure, and above all broken wreck of a person who had hazily stared at her palm filled with little white pills before snapping out of it and putting the majority of them back, she would have agonized to no end over it. That Ivy would have struggled through rehearsal, spent all of that time waiting for Derek's reaction to fall like Damocles's sword. But not this one. Her instincts were still there, still on the lookout for all the little games that he loved to play, still wanting to decipher what Derek was really saying with his actions. But Derek had been the one who had ultimately put into words that feeling that had, even from the beginning, made her want to choose _Bombshell_ over _Sex and the City_, who had made it clear that he wanted her, for the show at least. All of that had given her enough confidence that, here, at least, even if it didn't always carry through to all of the other aspects of her life, she could be freed from having to obsess over the results of her analysis of him. And if he wanted to pretend that it had never happened, well, so much the better, Ivy decided. No need to read anything more in to that.

So it was with some surprise that she reacted when after rehearsal on Thursday, as everyone was leaving, she heard Derek's voice in her left ear. "Ivy, a word?"

She stopped and turned. He waited until the others had finished departing before he countinued.

"Mothers can be a tricky subject, don't you agree?"

She smiled gently. "True. Although not for the same reason, I suspect."

"You'd be correct in that, although I don't think it's for the reasons you believe either."

She raised her eyebrow in response.

"My mother did, in fact, die shortly after my father left her and came out. She didn't die of a broken heart though. Nobody really does. I suppose you could say that about the people who kill themselves, but even then, they died because of their own issues, because they didn't get the psychiatric help they needed. A broken heart? No, that's such nonsense, pure romantic twaddle. She was diagnosed with cancer about a month after my father's announcement and she died because cancer is a horrible, wasting disease that destroys your health and saps your life and no amount of smiling and positive attitude and inner strength and fight and will to live can make the tumors go away. It's bloody insulting to think otherwise, if you ask me."

She had sat listening silently and just noticed that her mouth had opened, almost involuntarily, but no sound had come out. As if she had felt compelled to say something but had no idea what to say. She resorted to the old standby, the default thing to say in these situations, as meaningless as it may be.

"I...I...I'm so sorry."

He was amused, if anything.

"It happened more than twenty years ago. I've had time to get over it. And unless you've rather _spectacularly _missed the point of this story, you'll have realized by now that what I'm saying is..."

"Yeah, I got it, Tom..."

"...Tom's analysis was puerile, superficial, and above all erroneous. Something an overeager freshman who has just passed introductory psychology might babble to whomever is foolish enough to listen, wrongly believing himself to be possessed of great insight."

"I don't think I would have put it quite that way," she said.

He laughed again. "Probably not. You're loyal to your friends. But you know it's true."

"Do I?" she asked. "What was she like, your mother?"

"Tom was right about her, at least. She was tall, willowy, and pretty, with brown hair. Sweet, kind, and innocent. From the country. And yes..."

She cut him off, gently. "He was right about her. Let's just leave it at that. And I know this - mothers are, well, they're mothers. They're important. It's only natural for us to make them in to our feminine ideal, even when they've left us early. And even when we know very well just how very far from ideal they really are. It's something you carry with you, that shapes how you think. Even if you don't always realize it."

"Maybe," he said. "But it isn't why I saw..."

She interrupted again. "Oh God," she asked, "you heard everything, didn't you?"

He nodded.

"I never thought it was as simple as that, no matter what I must have sounded like," she said. "That you saw Tom as your dad, Karen as Cora - their names even sound alike - and that was that, just like that. Believe it or not, I've come to accept that for reasons that I will never quite completely understand she has this intangible, inexplicable appeal for you that makes you think she's right for this and that you've done enough in this industry to have earned the right to make these calls based on nothing but instinct. And of all the wonderful, crazy things that have happened to me over the past month, finding out that I'm at a place now where I can say that and mean that might be the most gratifying of all. But I meant what I said about mothers too. She's the first woman you ever see and the one you spend more time with than any other, so she becomes the prism you begin to see all women through. And yeah, I think that's part of her inexplicable appeal, even if it's not a big part, and even if it is only on some tiny, deeply buried subconscious level."

"Maybe," was his only response.

"If you don't blame your father for..."

"So why do I hate him?" he asked. She nodded. "I don't. Not exactly, at least. It's complicated."

"So what nuanced, complex, non-puerile analysis would you apply to your relationship with him?" she asked, smirking.

"It is, I suspect, rather similar to what you hope your relationship with your own mother to be..."

"Really?" she snorted. "Because I would hope that my relationship with my mother would involve unconditional love and support."

He laughed, not rudely she thought, although it was still a dismissive laugh. As if he was simply saying that there was no chance of that ever happening. Truth be told, she didn't find it particularly likely either.

"Even if that somehow happened, you wouldn't know how to react. You wouldn't know what to do."

"You're probably right," she conceded.

"Barring that divine miracle happening, then," he said, "the only thing left to do is to get yourself to a point where you can feel comfortable demanding that she take you as you are. And still be able to be happy with yourself if she won't."

He was right, she knew. Leigh would never change. Her mother wasn't a monster, Ivy thought. There were moments that, just as Ivy seemed ready to break completely, Leigh would offer a little bit of reassurance and love. But only a little bit and only when Ivy had reached her very limits. And those little crumbs would only emphasize just how much Ivy craved her mother's affection and respect, no matter how unhealthy it was for her. No, Leigh might not have been a sociopath, but she was a narcissist on a truly epic level.

"Do you know how much I wanted to scream, to yell at you about how I had to go through hell just because you couldn't deal with your unresolved mommy and daddy issues? But instead..."

Her voice trailed off and she smiled weakly. She left unsaid the second part of her sentence but she thought he had understood her meaning.

"My father and I are not without unresolved issues," he said. "Just not the ones you thought. I worked for him once on one of his shows, a long time ago. Our initial disagreement was, well, let's say it was mostly professional. Namely, that as a director, his shows were both puerile and pedantic, all possessed of a paint-by-numbers quality that turned them into pale imitations of the greats. He turned the works of his betters into formulas and believed that all one had to do was mechanistically apply that formula and in the end, he would have a good show. It worked well enough to get him several hits, so I suppose he may have even been right. Needless to say though, I disagreed. He was taking all of the art out of it. So we fought, over and over again, until I finally left. He spent the next few months trashing me to all of his friends in the West End, all making sure I couldn't get work.

"That's...that's awful."

"It happened. So I left and went to Broadway. First show I worked on, the critics panned it again, all because I wouldn't respect all of the bloody conventions that my father and his cronies all worshipped. So I ventured further afield again, went off-Broadway and off-off-Broadway, to some people who could appreciate a little bit of innovation. I met Tom around that time."

"Tom?"

"Yes, and don't ever tell him I said this, but he was somebody who could take those conventions, who could follow them and still add something new and fresh. That's the thing about Julia and him, they're so wonderfully versatile. Even in _Bombshell_ you have poppy numbers like the finale, beautiful ballads like 'Second Hand White Baby Grand,' big belty numbers like the opener, Latin-y pieces like '20th Century Fox' and jazzy pieces like 'Let's Be Bad,' and they all work together in one musical. His music is still too bright and happy on the whole, but the man does have talent."

"So why..."

"So why does he think that I'm a terrible human being?" he asked. She laughed.

"And where does Lyle come in?" She could still remember how the kid had described them as best friends so long ago.

"Tom and I, we worked on a little show together way back when, and we cast Lyle in it. It was nothing special, an adaptation of a terrible movie, but it made it to Broadway and it became a hit. So we both started working on the show we really wanted to put on, a pastiche of the shows my father used to put on, that poked fun at all of those tropes they contained. As it turned out, Tom made our show into an homage, an affectionate parody whil I wanted a deconstruction of those types of shows and directed it as such. Neither of us would give in, and as you might well imagine, the styles clashed horribly and the show ended up being far less than the sum of its parts. Suffice it to say, it didn't work, the critics panned it, and it flopped. An expensive disaster."

"And you had trouble getting work after that?"

"Tom did. I didn't. He still blames me for that. I, rather understandably I believe, saw the results as a vindication for my ideas and said as much to anyone who asked. I was fresh off of a bomb, after all, and I had to explain it away somehow if I wanted to keep working. And anyways, it seemed that there was one influential critic who agreed. The direction was grand, he wrote, despite the awful score. From that, Tom has conjured a grand conspiracy, with myself at its center, focused on preventing him from working again."

"You did kind of throw him under the bus," she noted.

"I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree. He ought to thank me, anyways, he wouldn't have met Julia if he hadn't had to spend that time wandering in the wilderness."

"I suppose we will. Look, I've got to go..."

"Plans? With your new..."

She looked at him. It was an off the cuff remark, but intriguing nonetheless. He had asked the question with something that was more than idle curiosity, and yet not quite jealousy. She wasn't sure what it was, but then, she wasn't sure how this knowledge made her feel now. She smiled sweetly before cutting him off. "Not that it's any of your business, but yes."

He laughed and nodded. She turned and walked away. She had reached the door when she heard him say her name again.

"Ivy?"

"Yes?"

"You never said it back, you know."

"What?"

"That morning in Boston..."

"When you said you loved me?"

"I didn't. But regardless, if you thought I did, well, you still didn't say it back."

She stared at him, stunned and trying to read his expressions.

"Did you want me to?" she asked.

"No," he said without wavering. She nodded. The silence returned and she had turned once again to leave before he spoke again. "I didn't, not really. But you don't get to complain about how I led you on or how I broke your heart with Rebecca Duvall. Not when you didn't say it back."

**A/N**: Many apologies for the long delay between chapters. I was out of town for the first two weeks of October on business, and then ended up writing bits and pieces of it over the next couple weeks, and then suddenly got very busy shortly before Thanksgiving (not-so-fun fact about litigation: lawyers _love _to serve up new motions, pleadings, and requests for discovery right before major holidays, and yes, screwing with your holidays/vacation is a feature, not a bug). Thankfully, I don't do Black Friday and do all my holiday shopping online, so that saved a major, unpleasant timesuck, and I had the chance to finish this chapter up today.

Anyways, I've got a good idea where this is headed - there are 4 chapters (plus possibly an epilogue) left, and I know which scenes they'll contain, even if I haven't written them yet - so this thing is definitely not abandoned and I have a clearer picture about the next chapter than I did about this one, so while I'll probably get busy again before Christmas in my day job, the next chapter also won't take as long to put to [virtual] page. That's the plan, at least.

And if anyone is still reading (or maybe even reviewing) this, you do have my thanks and appreciation.


	24. Chapter 24

She _hadn't_ said it back, Ivy realized. It had never even really occurred to her that she should have said it back, or that he might have wanted her to. She could only remember the giddy excitement from the casual way those words had slipped out, about happily telling Dennis, the first of her friends she had run into that day, the news. A horrifying thought occurred to her - had she driven him away? Had he expected her to say it back, only to meet with the implied rejection of her silence, and then run off to lick those wounds with Rebecca, while making face-saving denials that he had wanted that, or meant what he had said, or even that he had said it in the first place now?

_No_, she told herself, shaking her head. That was ridiculous. He was perceptive enough to know how she felt. She had been the one who was always pressing for more in the relationship, all while restraining herself so she didn't come across as too needy or clingy. And besides, even if that were the case, clearly they had still been in a relationship and clearly whatever rejection or fear he might have felt didn't justify what he did. There was no point in beating herself up trying to explain what had happened during the end of that relationship, particularly when she had been the one wronged.

Not that it mattered. She briefly thought about turning back to tell him this, but he had already left through a side door.

She returned home and browsed through her closet. before finding the right dress, a strapless number that accentuated her bust and lengthened her torso. Finding it on sale had been a real coup for her, but it had sat in her closet for the longest time because she had always been self-conscious about the two large moles on her left shoulder. But lately, she had found that Henry had liked playing with the freckles that dappled her upper body when they were in bed together.

She put it on. Soon, her phone rang. Her date had arrived.

"Hey," he said, giving her a kiss. "You okay?"

"I'm fine." It hadn't occurred to her that she looked as if she might not be. "I was running a little late from rehearsal. Derek wanted to talk to me."

"Hey," she asked as they walked out, "how come - well, you know that Derek's my ex and we spend all day together, I mean..."

He laughed, before finishing the sentence for her. "How come I'm not insanely jealous and threatened by him?"

"Well... yeah," she said sheepishly.

He stopped and turned to look at her carefully, eyes running over her appraisingly, but for the longest time remained silent.

"Ivy," he said finally. "Do you remember what you were like when we met? Or what you said to me at that wedding?"

"That you had a talent for catching me at my worst. I know, I was a real mess back then."

"Look, I know that it wasn't all his fault, and that it's complicated, and that it probably not even really any of my business. But I'm pretty sure that if you want to go back to him after all of that, then you must either really, really love him or you've still got some issues that ultimately, you're going to have to work out for yourself. Either way, I wouldn't want to interfere, and it means it wouldn't have worked out between us anyways."

"Maybe it'd be both," she said with a small smile. "Maybe I had to work some things out for myself, before things can work out with him or anyone else."

"Maybe. Wait, is this you breaking up with me?"

Ivy's eyes widened in horror. "Oh God no, not in the least," she said, offering him a kiss as a makeshift apology. "Not at all. I was just curious, is all."

He laughed. "Well, that's good to know. Let's go then?"

"Actually, can I ask you one more thing? When we met, what made you..."

"What made me notice you?"

"Well, yeah. I mean, look, I'm not one of those women who pretends that she thinks she's ugly or whatever. I am pretty damn cute, but there were lots of hot girls in that bar. Not just that, I was with Jessica, who's not just gorgeous but fun and carefree in a way that I hadn't been able to be and..."

"Honestly?" he chuckled. "I'd seen that video of you in that angel costume falling down on stage, and I thought I recognized you. Look, you're right, there were lots of girls in that bar, and your friend is cute as a button, but I just thought that you'd be really fun and interesting to talk to and spend some time with. After that, well, we were clicking, so why question it?"

"Makes sense. Okay then, let's go."

"By the way, next time, I promise, no more work functions as dates. We'll go somewhere fun and carefree. So we can both relax and lighten up a little."

She smiled. "Of course."

* * *

"So what is this thing we're going to, anyways?" she asked. The cab had taken them downtown, near the financial district. Out of her usual stomping grounds.

"It's a reception in honor of the new head of the SEC's enforcement division, sponsored by one of our clients but paid for in a way that doesn't violate the ethics rules. Jim, that's the guy this thing is for, he's a Skadden alum, and lots of potential clients will be there, so all the partners who can make it will be coming. Well, at least the ones who have charming personalities like mine," he joked, "and whose work is at least a little bit related. I do a lot of securities litigation, with a little bit of white collar crime thrown in, so here I am."

"Here we are," she said.

"Oh, also, I think I might have to babysit a bunch of the summers tonight."

"Summers?"

"Summer associates. Children, really. Law students, who have just finished their second year, and who we're trying out for the summer to see if we'll be brining them on full time. At least theoretically. Really, we're feeding them fancy lunches and free booze and taking them out to shows and games and bar crawls and booze cruises as well as fancy parties like this one to impress them with important people. And since I'm one of the newer partners, I'll probably have to look after them. Still, with the economy the way it is, they'll probably behave."

"Just probably?"

"The firm likes to give offers to every summer, it looks bad if we don't and hurts our prestige. All firms are like that. So it used to be that you really had to try to not get an offer, something like get charged with a felony or hook up with a partner's underaged daughter or something. Anyways, you tell law students that they're the best and the brightest and that they've all got jobs waiting for them and then spend the next ten weeks filling them with free booze, well, you get a lot of good stories about stupid summers. One year, this kid got so drunk at a booze cruise that she jumped in to the East River and tried to swim to Brooklyn."

"No way. Eww. The East River? Disgusting."

"Swear to God, it really happened. I mean, you take a bunch of newbies who have no idea what they're doing and tell them that they're all brilliant and special even though they haven't done anything to earn that and it's..."

"It's annoying as hell," Ivy said. "Trust me, I know."

"Yeah, it is," he said, amused, "but you deal with it because that's how the profession works and somebody probably thought of you the same way once and anyways, they'll have to earn their keep soon enough."

"Trust me, I know about that part too."

"Anyways, we're here, aren't we?"

"Yep, let's go."

"Hey," she heard a female voice, not hers, say as they entered the building.

"Denham?" he replied. "Court! How are you?"

The mystery woman, Court he had called her - or was it Denham? - had embraced him in a hug. He had stiffened initially, in surprise, but this wasn't one of the occasional awkwardly polite hugs where one leaned forward slightly and tried to avoid much real contact. He was holding her now, arms around her back, his face in her hair and her chin on his shoulder. There was real warmth there, Ivy noted, and when she broke off the hug, he seemed to linger for an extra second. It was almost imperceptible, but Ivy had seen it. There was real chemistry between these two, and probably history as well, Ivy thought, with jealousy rising.

She smiled sweetly and cleared her throat.

"Oh, sorry," he said. "Ivy, this is Court. We went to school together. Court, meet Ivy, my girlfriend."

"Great to meet you," Ivy said.

"Absolutely."

Ivy studied the other woman, looking her up and down. She was taller than Ivy, about 5'8 with shoulder-length hair that was light brown with just a hint of red and, in the right light, an occasional glint of gold, the type that would be called "sandy" or "dirty blonde" but wasn't quite either. Her skin was creamy in complexion and she had a well-rounded face with a broad smile. She wore a dark gray suit, simple but well fitted, with a red blouse. And, Ivy noted with some relief, a ring on her left hand.

"So Court," Ivy asked, "where's Mr. Denham tonight?"

The woman quirked her head slightly and gave her a crooked, knowing grin before laughing. "My name's Courtney, actually. Henry just likes nicknames and calling people by their last name. And it's actually Mr. Bassett, I never changed my name when we got married. But Thomas can't stand these things and he can't stand lawyers that aren't me, so I decided to do him a favor and leave him at home. You must really like Henry if you're coming to these things with him."

"You don't know the half of it," Ivy said. "But I made him promise to take me somewhere fun next time. Maybe somewhere touristy."

"Well, not Times Square since Ivy and I both work there," he responded. "Next door to each other, actually. But yeah, it's somewhere fun and touristy next time."

"Not too touristy, though?" asked Courtney.

"Yeah, not too touristy," replied Ivy. "Not Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty touristy."

"Got it. More like Cloisters and High Line touristy," he said.

"The Cloisters isn't really touristy, is it?" asked Courtney. "Even if it is kind of a cliche, especially for a date."

"It got that way for a reason," Ivy responded. "It's a dating cliche because it works. The place is_ gorgeous_. It's lush and quiet and lovely, and there are just so many places where you can just slip away and forget you're in the city and talk - or _not talk_ if that's what you prefer."

"See," Henry said cockily, giving her a quick kiss, "do I know my girlfriend or not? The Cloisters it is next time. I'm going to get us some drinks, do you want anything?"

"Champagne would be lovely."

"So, what do you do, Ivy?" Courtney asked when he had left. "Wait, let me guess. He said you worked next door to him, but you're not a lawyer. Hmm, you're a little too blonde and glamorous to be with the _New Yorker_. But I don't think you _quite _look like a _Vogue _or a _W _girl either, even if I do like your dress. Maybe the travel mag, but I think I'm going to go with _Vanity Fair_? I know, I know, stereotypes and you can't be sure, but still..."

"You're right about the pitfalls of stereotyping," Ivy said, unsure of how to react. She didn't know if Courtney had been making small talk throughout the conversation or if the woman was trying to be passive-aggressively patronizing. She rather suspected the latter, but thought also that her own repressed jealousy was making her think uncharitably of the other woman. Regardless, Ivy decided to put in a bit of an edge in her reply. "And need to listen more carefully. He said I work next door, not in the same building. At the theater. I'm an actress."

"Oh. Sorry. Anything I've seen?"

"I don't know, maybe, I've been in a lot of shows over the years. But I'll be in _Bombshell_, it's opening in the fall. I'm the Bombshell. Anyways, what do you do?"

"That you are," she said. "As for me, I'm a federal prosecutor. Or rather, an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, with the financial crimes section, which means I work with Jim's office a lot, which is why I'm here. And he must really like you, to say you're his girlfriend. You should have seen the last girl he brought to..."

"What," Ivy said, annoyed, "did he bring an escort or something?"

Courtney laughed. "Of course not. No, he brought this girl named Amanda. Tiny thing, about your height, with red hair and cute as a bug. They were neighbors, lived in the same building and that's how he introduced her too. 'This is Amanda, the girl who lives above me.' That's worse than 'friend,' really. I mean, 'the girl who lives above me, I kind of think she's stalking me, I don't actually like her that much but I let her tag along,' that's what it sounded like. Too bad, really, I liked Amanda. She was smart and funny and adorable. He told me once that she reminded him of me and then spent the rest of the conversation nervously trying to take back that sentence. I had to tell him to unclench and relax."

Ivy laughed politely, seething inside, all the while knowing that it was her own trademark insecurity, that she had only lately been able to control somewhat but still haunted her, driving her mad. The woman had given no indication that she was anything other than happily married, that she had designs on Henry as anything other than a friend. But then, why would she tell that story about that Amanda, except to try and make Ivy uncomfortable? _Stop it_, Ivy told herself. _You're acting like every crazy jealous psycho girlfriend from every bad TV show that ends up losing the guy to the sweet, nice girl that everyone's supposed to be cheering for. Don't_.

She made herself smile. "Yeah," she said. "Well, he called me his girlfriend. What's he like as a boyfriend, anyways?"

"I wouldn't know. I've been with Thomas for the entire time Henry's known me. One thing about dating in BigLaw, though, the hours are hell. It's worse than doctors, really, they work ridiculous shifts, like 36 hours straight, but when they're not on call, they're not on call and they're really off. With firms like his, you're always on call. It's one of those things you both have to understand and respect and accept, if it's going to have any chance to work out."

"Thomas does?"

"Well, I work for the government and the hours aren't quite as ridiculous for us. But yeah, he does. He does IT, and he works freelance so he gets to work from home and he loves that. It means he can cook and clean when I can't, which he loves anyways and I don't, and he's always up when I come home. It's not a conventional schedule but it works well for both of us."

"Yeah, I get that. Theater's pretty intense too. I love my job and sometimes it's just got to come first, he gets that and I get the same's true for him..."

"Are you girls talking about me?" Ivy heard him say. He had returned, holding three flutes of champagne.

"Oh of course not," said Courtney coyly. "Anyways, I should go say hi to Jim, mingle with the rest of the crowd. Have fun tonight."

* * *

Trying to hide her relief at Courtney's leaving, and unable to resist her own urge to pry, she asked, "So, how do you know her?"

Henry turned to her, gave her a small smile, and said "I told you, we went to school together."

"Fine," she said, "how _well _do you know her?"

"I haven't slept with her," he said lightly, still seemingly amused by her irritation.

"That's not what I asked."

"Court was my best friend in law school. Still one of my best friends today. And like I said, I've never slept with her."

"Did you ever want to?"

"She hasn't been single in the entire time that I've known her."

"She told me that, actually. And that still doesn't answer my question. You know, the more you try and weasel out of it, the..."

He grinned again, sheepishly this time. "I know. It's just that you're adorable when you're annoyed. Come on, don't be like that," he said upon seeing her unimpressed face. "I'm sorry if this makes you feel threatened. Look, how's this? I promise I'll tell you the whole story of me and Court, just promise me you'll let me finish the whole thing."

She nodded, without much enthusiasm.

"Honestly?" he continued with sincerity, dropping the playfulness, "yeah, I think she's pretty and that she's quite charming. Like I said, she's one of my best friends, we have fun when we hang out together, and I wouldn't have gotten through law school without her. She means a lot to me. And yeah, about ten years ago, I had a little crush on her, like I was actually fourteen or whatever, for a few months. Look, let me tell you how it ended. It was the end of our first semester, at a Christmas party. We'd just finished our finals and were getting ready to start our break. We were already close, we were in the same first-year section and had all the same classes and sat next to each other, swapping notes and chatting and joking with each other. She was already with Thomas then, they weren't engaged yet and they were doing the long-distance thing, he was still living in California, but they were definitely together already. She had lived together with him in California before we started school and was supposed to fly out there the next morning. There was a lot of booze involved at the party, a lot of letting off steam and just unwinding from all of the studying and work and intensity, and I ended up dancing with her. We went outside and started talking and in the middle of that, I just glanced at her and I just saw that she had a look in her eyes and I just knew, standing right there, that if I made a move then, there was a very good chance that I'd end up going home with her that night. I almost did, too. I leaned in to kiss her, and then it got windy which made me stop, and when the wind died down, I gave her another look which she returned, and I think we both just realized at that moment that the time for that had passed, that we really were better as just friends. I leaned in again and kissed her on the cheek, and that was that."

"You ever wonder what..."

"What might have happened if the wind hadn't been blowing like it was that night? I don't, not really, not anymore. I have before, but really, it's almost impossible to tell. Maybe we would have had a relationship, maybe we'd be married now. Or maybe we would have spent the night, and when she woke up, she'd tell me about how drunk we both were and what a mistake last night was, and I'd just have to smile, nod and agree and she'd fly to California and Thomas and we'd spend all of next semester smiling awkwardly at each other. I don't know. I have no idea what would have happened, but I've never regretted what actually did happen."

"Really?" asked Ivy. "Why not?"

"One, because contrary to what every movie and television show seems to want to say, it is, in fact, possible for a straight guy to have a pretty girl as a best friend and to genuinely value that friendship enough to not want to have it ruined by a failed relationship. And second, because I'm really rather fond of the girl that I'm standing next to right now. Alright?"

"Alright," she said, smiling, and mostly reassured, if still slightly unsettled. She grabbed her date's hand, and walked forward.

Until she heard someone say her name.

"Ivy?"

She turned, surprised, recognizing the voice and knowing it wasn't Henry's.

"Daddy?"

**A/N: **A huge thanks to anyone still reading and/or reviewing. As for the long wait, well, as I expected December/early January was super-busy, and I do have to be out of town again at the end of February, but I do expect the next chapter to be somewhat quicker to write. I hope so anyways, but regardless, I'm determined to finish this, especially as I already have an ending, and I'm this close.

I tried to make sure that the dialogue had a point this time. I don't know if it's better or more interesting, but I did make sure to have a reason in my mind for each line before writing it down, and not just dialogue for the sake of it. Hopefully, it works this chapter.

The Conde Nast Building, in addition to being home to Skadden and next door to the Stephen Sondheim Theatre on Times Square, is, as might be predicted from its name, home to the Conde Nast group of publications. Better writers than I have written numerous pieces comparing the Conde Nast cafeteria (which is notable for being a Frank Gehry design) to a high school, with the _New Yorker _folks as the nerdy kids and the _Vogue _people as the catty mean girls.

By the way, the story about the summer associate jumping into the East River after drinking far too much? It really is true. Put "Above the Law" and "Aquagirl" in Google sometime, and prepare to be amused (or shocked or horrified) at the antics of some very-well-educated and very-well-paid ($3600 a week) kids. Or look up "summer associates" to learn some of the more extravagant perks. Incidentally, Aquagirl, who was a year before my own time as a summer, may have been a cautionary tale on what not to do, but she actually did end up getting a job offer from her firm despite all that.

LizaGirl - awww, thanks so much

Shanshii - thanks, I'm glad you appreciated the backstory. I think, it should come in to play a little more the next chapter, which has more of a Derek-focus.

Carla - nobody's suing me, fortunately ;) Lawyering is my day job. And I agree. Also, next chapter is Tech, and Bombshell should be opening on Broadway in the chapter after that.

Guest 1- thanks!

Guest 2 - I have, actually, just recently. I'm a fan of Crowded House so I appreciated Ivy getting to sing "Don't Dream It's Over" (even if I was all of 2 when it came out) and the way she put her own take on it, while still getting the bittersweet, bleak, yet ultimately hopeful tone of the song.


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